To get you back to reality: What is your favourite colour?
And if you would be a colour today, which one would that be?

and this is my favourite video of this week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BerKZy9lVZ4

Greetings from Europe,
Gabrielle – today quite silver

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

Discuss.

My exposure to notions of identity in socisl theory is limited to freshman sociology, in which I was taught (if I remember after all these years) that there is a theory of the social construction of identity due, I believe, to George Herbert Mead who is supposed to have believed that our notion of self is forged by our relationships – starting from earliest infancy and childhood. Makes a lot of sense to me – though I don’t think it’s the whole story. But it makes a convenient jumping off point.

Let’s take a crack at defining “identity”. My attempt would be as follows. When one acting as subject contemplates one’s “self” as object, ones description, evaluation and emotional response to that object are what we usually call “identity”.

Now people vary in the degree to which they engagwe in contemplating themself as object. Us introspective types probably do it a lot. I would expect extroverts to do it less. And I would suggest that for those who contemplate themself less, “identity” is less well articulated, but also less fluid. Kind of “just there” – taken for granted.

Now for those of us who think a lot about “who am I”, one thing we notice is that the answer to that question changes substantially in the varying circumstances of one’s life. Let’s consider (as a for instance) bilingualism. Will one’s sense of identity differ among ones’s (say) Spanish speaking peers compared to those with whom one speaks English? I say in general – yes but. One’s behavior, “personality”, and one’s impression of “who I am” may change slightly or markedly. But, unless one has MPD there is something that does not change. The “Operating System Kernel” monitors all the changes and notices them. But that monitoring itself represents a continuity of “something”.

Now let’s throw out a few more potential identity benders. Will your identity differ among different peer groups? How about in different roles? Is the football hero a different guy on the field, in the locker room with his buddies, parked in the back seat with the head cheerleader, at home enjoying Mom’s chicken soup, at the meeting with the college athletic recruiter? (Some of these examples are perhaps specific to my generation – feel free to substitute your own).

Now perhaps we can ask “are you somebody different online?”. I would say “Yes – many different somebodys – just as you are offline”.

So, I’m saying that I think important elements of identity, though not its entirety, is context dependent and the most important element of those contexts is the social dimension. So then, does online/offline cancel out, as Eric seems to suggest? I think not. Because social processes online are different from those offline. And, as well, are differnet in different online venues.

Just as a few quick examples, social processes differ among large forums (eg usenet), chat rooms (eg IRC), online role playing/gaming environments, SNS, IM, cell-phone “texting”, small blogs, medium blogs, mega-blog sites (eg Daily Kos). In each of these venues technical constraints and opportunities shape the prefferred pattern of social relationships, sometimes by design, and hence must help shape identity.

Now the impact of online venues on identity may not be different in a fundamental sense from the impact of factors such as literacy, mobility, urbanization, language, and others. But it has its own unique character for all that. The online environment is genuinely new in human experience. And we are alive at the very beginning. So, in a practical sense, even if not in a philosophical one, it really is a big deal.

And, kind of an afterthought, which doesn’t fit neatly into where I thought I was going with all this. It strikes me as very interesting for this question that the online environment has an unprecedented collection of formal tools designed explicitly to facilitate the construction of one’s presented identity. And, we see an explosive proliferation of constructed identities as a consequence. Offline, false identities are rare enough to be remarkable – as in the Movie “The Great Imposter” based on the book “The Great Pretender” – the story of Fred Demara who pretended quite effectively to be many different people – none of whom were authentically him. Online, a milder version of this syndrome is perhaps as common as not. Does anybody here really atempt to maintain a unified identity across your various online venues? I think not.

Provocative as always,
-Steve

I totally feel your pain about being totally immersed in your research and finding it difficult to comment intelligently on anything else. try to relax every now and again, and let us know who wins the Marx vs. Engles steel cage death match.

Nav had asked, “does identity online differ from the texts of identity ‘IRL’ or those contained in books i.e. the identity of an author?” Pamela Poole, Davy, and clayburell ask similar, provocative questions about the relationship between online identity and offline identity. In response to Nav, Steve argues that the nature of online tools and interaction “changes the whole notion of what it means to be text – hence it must change text-mediated conceptions of identity.”

the question that I’d like to ask is about this very notion of online/offline. does it make sense, or is it beneficial (conceptually, analytically, practically), to make a distinction between online and offline? yes, lots of people, especially teens, are incredibly socially (inter)active online, but those people with whom they interact are often people they know offline, as well. clearly, the two are not mutually exclusive.

however, I don’t think online and offline identities are completely coincident, either. in a talk about MMOGs, Celia Pearce quoted someone (I don’t recall whom), saying that, when we play, we play someone who is not us but who is not not us, either. I suspect something similar happens when people go online; their online identity is not who they are, but it is not someone else entirely, either.

these and other factors combine to make me wonder, is the distinction between online and offline an important, useful, or interesting one? or is it perhaps instead detrimental, causing us to miss important aspects of the fluid nature of identity construction across these various media? I’m inclined to agree with the later assertion. rather than looking at the internet as an object that determines whether a given identity is an online identity or an offline identity, perhaps we might look at the net as one medium among many through which identity is constructed.

I’m not saying that we always believe there is a clear split between online and offline, but in order conceptually to grapple with these complexities, I think we need new ways of talking about, and thinking about, how technologically-mediated identity construction relates to other kinds of identity construction.

1) Shut down your laptop
2) Turn off your phone
3) Release yourself of any electronic distraction
4) Go get your CD’s out – and pull out “Not a Pretty Girl”
5) Play it in order on a stereo with speakers and not on your headphones
6) Think of the things you thought of when you first really fell in love with that album
7) Then go out for a walk

That is what I think you should do because I know the idea is to bring in new ideas when really there are already a lot of new ideas buzzing around in your head – however it is your thoughts of the past that brought you to this place and perhaps that kind of reflection will help.

Cheers – Eric
P.S. This is what I do – however I put on “Growing Up in Public”

We came up with this.

We learn by communicating with each other because each one of us is different but not so different we can’t learn from one another. When we communicate we store a little bit of that person in ourselves which we call memory. The smartest people on our planet are the ones who can see every persons point of view and knows how to apply it. Spark your interest?

I blogged about it to.

http://scott-thorpe.com/?p=13