Social Networking Sites Aid Iranians Trying to Assert Identity

15 June 2010

Iranians, and especially Iranian youth, are using the internet to connect with each other all over the world and assert their own identities.

Sam Sedaei says that identity is like an invisible man, and for him as an Iranian American, a coherent identity can be even more difficult to see. A blogger for the

Huffington Post

, Sedaei claims that writing served as a sort of white powder for him, which he could then throw over the invisible man and discover his shape. In his opinion, writing helps affirm identities, which makes sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other blogging sites all the more important as Iran's youth tries to shape its own identity.

"That's how I see writing," said Sedaei. "It's not so much that it makes your identity, but that it helps you see it, and it helps you be able to define it better and understand it better. So to that extent, absolutely social networking has a big role in helping Iranian youth."

In efforts to repress any revolutionary fervor in the past few years, Iran has deemed large gatherings of people to be suspicious. But now with social networking, Iranians can gather by the thousands on a Facebook group, or communicate using Twitter. These new forms of communication are helping Iranian youth communicate with each other and shape their identity just as Sedaei did.