Abstract

The aim of the present work is to analyze the role of social networks in the construction of our personal identity. This will be done through Paul Ricoeur’s narrative theory, that seems particularly fruitful in order to describe the structure of our online profile, as well as our relation to it. Far from being a simple appliance of Ricoeur’s theory, this work will try to specify what Ricoeur means by “narrative” and how the particular case of social networks enables us to redefine the conditions and limits of the narrative. The idea that this work develops is that our online profile can be considered as a form of narrative because it cannot be reduced neither to a simple representation nor to the simple fact of living. It introduces instead a mediation between them. Representation and life are therefore the two extremes between which our profile needs to situate in order to avoid the failure and indeed to produce our identity.