La presentazione di una falsa identità nell’era digitale

Increasing online communication has opened up new ways of constructing and representing identity in the digital world, including the explosion of ‘false’ identities where users pretend to be a real or imagined other person. The creation of fake online profiles is a relatively recent phenomenon and research in this field is still limited. However, some underlying psychological factors are emerging. The goal of this review is to identify the characteristics of the phenomenon of fake online identities and make visible the relational dynamics that are built in the digital world. Following the guidelines indicated by PRISMA, this review examined studies exploring Psychinfo, Google Scholar, and Internet as well as the bibliographic references of the identified contributions. Search terms such as (“fake self” or “false self”) and (web or internet or app or social networks) and (identity) were used. These search terms initially led to the identification of 126 studies (on Psychinfo), mainly in the field of social, dynamic, developmental psychology and computer science; an additional 19 studies were identified with the other sources. Since this is a systematic review and not a meta-analysis, there were no strict inclusion criteria; however, an initial selection led to the exclusion of numerous contributions, leaving 34 studies that specifically dealt with the psychological determinants and consequences of the presentation of the false self that we summarize in this contribution. We first examine the characteristics of the online false Self, then explore how a false Self is presented online, including the different types of false selves as well as possible motivating factors