The Experince of Virtual Leisure and Expressive Individualism (Case study: University of Kurdistan students on Facebook)

The present study aims to examine status individuals’ experience in their relationship with themselves and the lived experience of individuals in their social relations in virtual space through the intermediary of virtual space. The main questions here are: how is virtual space represented? How does virtual leisure express the self-image, concepts and self-identity of students? And, how does virtual leisure produce and reproduce the resistance/control dualism? To answer these questions at the methodological level, we purposefully employed virtual ethnography, in-depth virtual interview techniques and participatory observation of University of Kurdistan students on Facebook. The theoretical idea of the present article is that virtual space, due to the different forms of social networking services, has led to the emergence of various forms of living and network-based experiences, which construct a special form of individualism commonly referred to as expressive individualism. The virtual life of individuals acts a challenge/substitute for their real life and expressive individualism thus develops. At the epistemological level, the representation, identity and resistance of virtual leisure of students have been examined based on Chris Rojek’s leisure theory. The findings of the study show that virtual leisure on Facebook acts a therapeutic space for the real life of users and forms a kind of individualism called expressive individualism, which is full of emotional dualisms. Virtual leisure has made the formation of an autonomous, yet virtual and fluid, identity possible, which is quite expectedly parallel with but in contrast to the objective reality. In terms of resistance, virtual leisure, because of its limited construct, has created a spatial society for hidden resistance, which acts as plural public domain. Regarding the controlling function in the virtual space, inter-subjective control, personal principles and values and feeling of conspiracy are the factors that control behavior of users on Facebook.