Author Archives: Nicole Taylor

I am anthropologist who explores contemporary social issues related to youth including social media, gender and identity, body image, obesity, and socio-emotional well-being. Most recently, I have examined self-presentation, emotional expression, and sociality among college students on social media. Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, this project also explores ethical and methodological challenges of conducting long term participant observation in social media. Check out my recent co-authored (with Mimi Nichter) book from this project: A Filtered Life: Social Media on a College Campus (Routledge 2022).
ntaylor@txstate.edu | https://www.txstate.edu/anthropology/people/faculty-staff/taylor.html | Assemblage Profile
Cover image of the book, A Filtered Life. The cover consists of a block of blue on top, with white text. The text reads, from top to bottom, "Nicole Taylor and Mimi Nichter" (author names), and "A Filtered Life: Social Media On A College Campus" (title of the book). Below the blue block is an image of several young people of different races and genders pouting. The front of the image contains a camera that is posed to take a photograph of the young people pouting.

Digital Multiples and Social Media

Nicole Taylor, Mimi Nichter March 28, 2023
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In this post, we unpack the meaning and many works of creating and maintaining digital multiples, a term we coined in our recent ethnography, A Filtered Life, to explore the multiple, dynamic expressions of self across online contexts (Nichter and Taylor 2022). This concept emerged from our ethnographic research with more than 100 college students exploring sociality, emotional expression, and online identity work. Our methods for this study included in-depth interviews, focus groups, writing prompts, and long-term participant observation in students’ social media sites. (read more...)

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