Technology Today
Technology has always had a significant impact on the way we communicate and socialise. Today’s technologies have, in many cases, become so integrated within our daily lives, that they play a part in constructing our existence and understanding of reality. The Internet is one such piece of technology that influences our perceptions of our self and our surroundings. This essay will aim to explore the social implications of experimentation with identities online, as well as evaluating the ways in which new technologies may continue to shape this issue in the future.
The self and self-identity is a continually changing entity, which is constantly being reconstructed throughout a person’s life. (Slevin, 2000) Technology provides a means through which people can ‘actively and intelligently’ engage in constructing or altering their identity. (Slevin, 2000) The Internet provides many opportunities for experimentation with identities through Computer Mediated Communication, or CMC’S. Common CMC’s include Blogs, Internet Relay Chats, MUD’s, Forums and Email. Each of these communication tools allow for experimentation with multiple or false identities, as they afford anonymity.
Anonymity, and hence the ability to experiment with character, is an attractive feature of Internet communication for many people. (Detweiler, 1993) There are several reasons cited for this, although the most common seems to be attributed to the notion of escapism. In his short stories, William Gibson describes cyberspace as ‘bodiless exultation.’ (Author Unknown, Texter.com) In his short story, Burning Chrome, his characters communicate feelings of escapism from a mundane reality, into the exciting world of cyberspace, in which they ar...
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Over the years people have all safeguarded their personal identities for the risks of emotional pain that others can cause, the recent use of the online identity being another fortification to this protection. However this has lead people to confuse which identity is their personal one and which is their online one, because of the development of taking technology with you. This can harm one’s relationships with close friends and family that sometimes get confused for the others. With the consequences of bring aspects of online identity into personal identities, many people find it hard to maintain the boundaries of these two. The first step is to understand the problem so one can better see how each identity can fix into its place and still be able to protect them from any positional emotional scarring.
Overall, the ruling in this case was a perfect interpretation of the Constitution. Despite opposition claiming that it is not addressed in the Constitution, too few rights are ever addressed in the Constitution of the United States. That is why there is a thing called Judicial Review. By utilizing judicial review, the interpreters of the law –Supreme Court, may make changes to policies and laws. Abortion, medicinal marijuana, and marriage fall under the umbrella of Equal Protection since they correspond to the rights and liberties of US citizens.
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Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid." July/August 2008. The Alantic Magazine. 20 February 2012 .
In an article called “Relationships, community, and Identity in the New Virtual Society” Arnold Brown explains two different identities, one that he calls “found identity” and the other “made identity” (34). The found identity is one that is created by one true self, it’s based off your background, your religion, your sexuality, everything that truly defines who you really are. And then there’s your made identity, the one you make for yourself and how you wish to be seen. As technology advances, the easier it will be for young girls to create these made identity’s of these famous celebrities, having them focus on things that don’t matter instead of valuing who they really are. As an older sister, I can say that I’ve seen change in my own sister.
In the past, individual’s identities were often assigned to them by the hegemonic culture, largely based on their conceptualization of sameness. The hegemonic culture dominated identity discourse by drawing distinct boundaries between racial and cultural groups, separating and defining them. Modern discourse however, has seen individuals taking the power of assigning identity signifiers for themselves often in periods of great social change. While times of resistance are often the most easily recalled examples of this, subtle trends in society a tremendous impact, often without the conscience knowledge of the society. In the past two decades, Western Culture has been witness to a radical transformation in identification processes. Technology has become increasingly pivotal to popular culture, and as such, it has had a profound influence on the way we create and affirm our sense-of-self. Identification categories have become less rigid compared to thirty years ago, and people are on average more open to identifying across boundaries. The process of blurring identity lines between distinct groups has re-distributed the power of assigning signifiers from the hegemonic element of popular culture to the individual. Means of instant information distribution and exchange, discourse and academic retrieval, such as instant messengers, social networking sites, Wikipedia, et al are perhaps some of the most influential because of their instantaneousness. While the lines have become blurred on a social level, individual identities are often affirmed.
In today's world, technology is constantly changing from a new paperclip to an improvement in hospital machinery. Technology lets people improve the way they live so that they can preserve their own personal energy and focus on the really important factors in life. Some people focus their energy on making new innovations to improve transportation and the health of people that may save lives and some people focus on making new designs of packaging CDS. Technology is significant in everyone's life because it rapidly changes what is in the market. But, some new innovations of technology are ridiculous because they serve no purpose in helping mankind.
“All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely player… ” (2.7.146-47). Shakespeare’s poem pointed out everyone is only actors on the stage of this world. Goffman (1959) has a similar theory with Shakespeare that everyone is a performance; at any given moment, we play different roles. Through social media, everyone can carefully select what role that we want to project on virtual sphere.I argue that my identity changed varies different platform. In this essay, I discovered who am I online, what roles I was playing and how did I manage the impression I crave to give others on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Line.
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Hordila - Vatamanescu, E., & Pana, A. (2010). The Application of the Communication Accommodation Theory to Virtual Communities: A Preliminary Research on the Online Identities. International Journal Of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 5(4), 279-290.
Multiple identities have been increased by the creation of cyberspace communications according to "Cyberspace and Identity" by Sherry Turkle. Turkle uses four main points to establish this argument. Her first point is that online identity is a textual construction. Secondly she states that online identity is a consequence-free moratorium. Turkle's third point is online identity expands real identity. Finally, her last point states that online identity illustrates a cultural concept of multiplicity. I disagree with many aspects of her argument and I have found flaws in her argument. Technology is an area that does not stand still and consequently outpaced Turkle's argument.
The human need for affiliation creates the challenges and rewards of finding acquaintances, forming close friendships, as well as intimate relationships. Through technological advances cyberspace, or the internet, has become a place of multiple opportunities for people to be able to fulfill that need for affiliation. Websites, chat rooms, and online communities are just some examples of virtual platforms for people to seek others, come together, and find that special someone. These opportunities can result in positive outcomes allowing people to achieve what or whom they were seeking, but they can also result in harm to themselves and others, resulting with damaging consequences. Cyberspace does not come with a warning label. People who use the internet as a means to seek relationships are at risk of being exposed to positive as well as negative results. Being made aware of some of those risks and dangers, and realizing that forming relationships on the internet is not all fun and games, may be ways to help promote a positive future for cyberspace as a place to form successful relationships.
To begin with, we technically are not born with identity; it is a socially constructed attribute. Identity is a transient thing, which changes over time as we grow and mature. The self-concept, which is our own personal understanding of who we are, combines with self awareness to cultivate a cognitive representation of the self, called identity (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2010, p.118). In other words, who we are is controlled by internal and external factors that combine to make us who we become. Bring new media outlets into the equation, such as the internet, and media is now regarded as an "extension of everyday life and a tool of cultural change" (Singh, 2010). Thus, identity formation, as a social concept, is being transformed in new and even more global ways.
The Web. 11 Nov. 2013.. http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/teens-social-media_b50664> Floridi, Luciano. The Construction Of Personal Identities Online. Minds & Machines 21.4 (2011): 477-479.