Multiplicity of the Self
The question of online identities has always intrigued me. I was, or perhaps still am, Palfrey’s sixteen-year-old protagonist that had multiple online profiles and was constantly changing them to reflect who I had become, or who I thought others would find interesting, every day.
Palfrey writes that this constant creation of the self is simultaneously freeing and restrictive. While we have the ability to be whomever we’d like in cyberspace, we don’t have much control over who accesses the information and how they perceive it (34-5). Thomas adds that this continuing constructing of the self also leaves us fragmented. Quoting from Agger she writes:
“…the virtual self composes himself in daily email, web surfing, chatting, cell phoning, faxing. It is a postmodern self less stable and centred than the self of previous modernities.” (9)
I thought it would be interesting to talk about this idea of the fractured self, and if the multiple ways of representing oneself in different online “bodies” – which Thomas defines as any virtual text or visual construction that we use to represent ourselves in the online world – are indeed an essential part of our identities outside of cyberspace? Can we ever represent our real-life selves accurately online, or is that necessary or even the point?
Of course, there is so much in these readings that I invite you to address any other topic that strikes your fancy.
Note about the readings: In Thomas’ chapter, stop before you get to Lacan and Psychoanalytical theory. Who needs more phallic symbols in their lives, really?
Hello Jillian,
Thanks for the insightful readings and questions. I will begin by addressing first Palfrey, then Thomas. I read both today and was intrigued by a number of aspects of both chapters.
In Palfrey, I quickly become immersed in the two possible views of identity presented at one point, namely that one either has multiple identities, or that one has a single identity which happens to have multiple dimensions, all of which come together to form one cohesive identity. Personally, I don’t think a person has multiple identities. I am a believer in the idea that all portrayals of ones identity are simply aspects of a singular, central identity at the core of a person’s being. That someone can actually be more than one person simply because they have an online and offline way of presenting themselves is problematic, in my opinion, and speaks to a whole other set of issues beyond simply identities presented to the public.
I did like that Palfre was able to admit that some of the arguments in the text were overgeneralizations, and that it is easy to oversimplify certain ideas related to Digital Natives. I felt the reading to be quite balanced and willing to admit that certain biases were existent at some points in the discussion of generalized perspectives on Digital Native online behaviour and identity performance.
And speaking of identity performance, Go Judith Butler!!! Sorry, I’m a bit of a fan of the performativity theory. I like how Thomas brings this theory into arguments about identity formation through offline and online presentations of the self. It’s very true how identity is a form of performance, especially when it comes to online identities: choosing screen names, building avatars, etc. A lot of thought has to go into how a person wishes to present themselves. And yet how the person ends up building his or her identity comes from, I believe, a singular, core self. Therefore, an online identity–or multiple identities–is not a new identity, but an extension of the core identity that accentuates specific aspects.
That’s all I’ve got. This should e an interesting class discussion!
Rob
25 Feb 11 at 8:28 pm
First off, can I say how much I enjoy considering my cyborg self? It takes me back to the days of Star Trek: TNG.
I, like Rob, really appreciated the Butler performative theory in regards to online identity. I really enjoyed Thomas’ article. The performance of online identity seems well matched with the panoptic theory of Foucault here, and putting the two together match my view of online identity. A few examples of what I mean…
Jillian and I got into quite a heated discussion at one time about how heavily I curate my own facebook profile. She felt that I was being rude by deleting comments others had posted. I feel strongly that I want my profile to be at its most interesting should someone go looking at it. So in this way, I am aware of others that could possibly be looking at my online identity, and also ensuring that its performance is Oscar-worthy. Like Palfrey’s article talks about, we have control over what our identities look like, but we don’t know who is looking at it, and to what extent. This being said, I’m not sure to what extent younger folks than I are curating their identities.
What struck me most in these readings is how much other people play into the construction of our online identities. This had never really been something I considered before reading these articles, and so, on that point, I agree with Rob about the extension of a core identity. I have certainly judged people by what their friends’ write on their walls and tweets. I don’t mean I’m judging that person’s friends; I am unabashedly judging my own friends and acquaintances. I also didn’t realize how aware I am of other people’s judgements when I comment on someone’s status or photo; I will generally only comment publicly if I think it’s a comment that others will find funny/pithy/insightful. This “once-removed” online identity is something that I hadn’t thought about until now, but I guess it’s not much different than a side comment in the general store made about that agrarian teen in the 19th century.
skmatson
26 Feb 11 at 5:35 pm
I also found the tension between our increased control over our personal identity and our loss of control of our public identity to be a fascinating idea. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it laid out so clearly as Palfrey does. It’s so easy for personal information about ourselves to get out of our control, and once it does, there’s essentially nothing we can do about it. In fact, in the internet age, the harder that people try to control personal information, the faster and wider it tends to spread, something that has come to be known as The Streisand Effect, and is played out on the internet on a regular basis. (Have we talked about that in class already? If so, I apologize for repeating myself.)
I took issue a bit with Palfrey’s conflation of the behaviour of Digital Natives with that of adolescents in general. At this point, pretty much all Digital Natives are adolescent or younger, so talking about Digital Natives’ predilection for posting too much personal information online just seemed to me to be the issue of young peoples’ underdeveloped sense of risk evaluation, rather than something specific to being “digital”.
I have to admit that the Thomas piece was pretty much opaque to me. As soon as someone starts quoting Foucault, my computer geek brain tries to find a dark corner to hide in. I did enjoy that she called the protagonist of The Matrix “Nero”, though. I’ll try giving it another read-thorough, so I’ll hopefully have something intelligible to say about it for class.
kifty
26 Feb 11 at 5:45 pm
Thanks for the selections of texts. The identity process and construction of the self is an interesting subject for me but to learn about how young people tries to expressed and experimented about it trough the digital world I found fascinating!
I agree with Rob and Stacey, well principally with Butler, that the process of “identity is a performance of fantasy and desire” (5). We always try to show in a positive way, of course this changes depending on the group of people with whom we interact, I do not show up in the same way with my students that with my friends.
I was thinking in the Foucauldian panopticon too, Stacey. This concept have too much sense especially with the topics of last class, about how we are watched by others, how government or other identities can observe what we are doing with our use of technology: cell phones, internet searches, … “they are watching us without being seen”.
But this concept can also be applied to the same surveillance applied by the Society in our virtual identity: last year one of my aunts called my attention because of one photo that one of my friends had tagged me on Facebook saying that “this behavior does not correspond to a teacher from the school where I was teaching” (all this because I teach to her daughter and one of my cousins had seen my pictures) With this I agree that teenagers should be especially careful in what they share because, as mentioned in classes and textbooks, none of what is published is really private.
And one last thing, it made me a lot of sense the concept of lurker, how many times I’ve found myself on Facebook looking for old “friends” and if I do it I think it should also be done otherwise. Others see the way we present ourselves in the virtual world and so I think we should raise awareness of this in adolescents (I am thinking all the time in my students that they don’t have developed their digital literacy).
magdalena
26 Feb 11 at 9:52 pm
I too, really enjoyed these readings. I found the concept of identity as a ‘performance’ very applicable to online identity creation, and was especially intrigued by the issues that Palfrey raises by pointing out that online identities (especially in social networks) are not only constructed by the individual, but also through the “digital footprints left by others.” Thomas’ concept of “authoring oneself” seems to fit nicely into this idea of identity as a performance, and it seems to me that one’s one’s online identity could in many ways be represented as a self-portrait, albeit a self-portrait hanging in a semi-public space with a box of crayons sitting next to it. In the context of Thomas’ (very astute) rejection of the notion that online identity is fully separate from the body in that it involves “real people experiencing real reactions,” (link audio NSFW) this ‘identity performance’ can be construed as a very real and meaningful contribution to the development of a young person’s sense of self. That some aspects of it are out of their control (ie friend’s contributions to their profiles ect.) seems somewhat worrisome, but is ultimately dependent on their own ability to control the content displayed in their profile and ability to select suitable online acquaintances. This doesn’t strike me as vastly different from the challenge of selecting ‘RL’ friends whose antics won’t get you into trouble (or, at least, learning how to distance yourself enough from them when the authorities come looking to avoid the trouble yourself). I want to clarify that I’m thinking of a ‘social network’ style online space here, although as the authors’ stated, the theories can also apply to ‘avatar’ based spaces.
I was really bothered by the lack of distinction in these articles between identity creation in social networking spaces (a la Facebook) and virtual worlds and games (a la Second Life — which, I’m increasingly convinced, as someone mentioned, is almost entirely populated by sociologists studying one another). While they are correct in that both of these types of spaces allow for identity creation(/performance), they encourage it to be carried out in vastly different ways and with different purposes. Palfrey’s observation that youths might have one identity on Facebook and another in World of Warcraft(!) struck me as ludicrously obvious. One of WoW’s primary appeals is the promise of escaping into an alternate identity, while Facebook is widely credited with shifting internet culture away from anonymity and providing a space for people to share their ‘real’ identities. Almost every aspect of the ‘identity performance’ in these spaces is wildly different: Facebook intends, and goes to significant lengths to encourage, that users sign up under their real names and the identity created in its profiles is largely dependent on the users’ ‘real life’ identity including friends that one has contact with outside of the space, and includes photos, events and discussions that extensions of one’s life outside of cyberspace. WoW, in contrast, requires one to create an avatar that in all likelihood isn’t even human with the intention of performing various feats of strength and quests while ‘roleplaying’ a fantastical identity with other avatars. Lumping both of these types of identity creation seems to as significant as oversight as distinguishing an actor’s ‘true’ persona from the character they play on TV. I agree that valid argument could be made that both are practices in identity creation, but under very different circumstances for very different purposes.
schuyler
28 Feb 11 at 12:23 am