"You are who you pretend to be. And the mask becomes the face."
- Sherry Turkle (Life on the Screen, 1995)
The changing technological landscape is making the metaverse a new normal, where users immerse themselves in the virtual world, projecting themselves through their own customised avatars. These avatars redefine the user's identity, either complementing or conflicting with the user's real-world identity. The work offers insight into how individuals balance their virtual and real-world identities, and how this affects their psychological well-being. Grounded in Social Identity Theory, the study presents an 'Integration-Fragmentation-Adaption' identity model to illustrate how individuals experience identity fragmentation or adaptation while navigating the metaverse and the real world, ultimately influencing their psychological well-being. The proposed model is built on three propositions. First, users with high avatar identification and low self-concept clarity are more prone to identity fragmentation. Second, participation in metaverse groups that are more congruent with an individual's real-world norms predicts identity integration. Third, users who demonstrate psychological flexibility are more likely to experience identity adaptation and maintain meta-identity coherence.
This is a foundational study of the metaverse and identity, adding to the existing literature on identity within the context of a rapidly evolving technological landscape. Metaverse is slowly becoming an integral part of one's life, especially for future generations. Further studies can be built upon this work to extend the scope and realise the greater psychological implications of the metaverse.