Everyday Digital Life: Understanding Online Interaction, Identity, and Emotional Experiences

Abstract

Digital technologies have become deeply embedded in modern everyday life. Social media platforms, messaging applications, online communities, and interactive digital tools shape how people communicate, learn, express themselves, and relate to others. For many individuals—especially younger generations—digital spaces are not merely optional add-ons but essential environments where social life unfolds. As a result, the line between online and offline experience has grown increasingly blurred.

The uploaded article that inspires this paper examined how people experience digital platforms in their daily routines. It explored how online environments shape identity, emotional experiences, social belonging, and personal interactions. While the original study used complex qualitative analysis in academic language, this undergraduate-level paper aims to reinterpret and expand those ideas in accessible, original writing. No content is copied; instead, the themes and findings are translated into simpler language while maintaining academic rigor. The goal of this paper is to better understand how digital platforms influence people’s lives today—not only through what users do online but through how platforms shape their feelings, relationships, and self-perception.
It also aims to explain how online environments create both opportunities and risks, producing an emotional “push and pull” that affects individuals in subtle ways. Through an expanded discussion of the study’s themes, this paper will provide a clearer understanding of how people navigate online life and how digital technologies contribute to social change.