Online Identities

Response to Kate’s blog – On My Soapbox: Virtual Communities

Where have our identities gone?

I was having a read through Kate’s rendition of virtual communities and how they have taken over our identities, and it got me thinking about what really has happened to society? Is it now socially acceptable to just converse over online communication, rather than face to face interaction? Is that really what our world has come to? It was not long ago when Myspace and Facebook didn’t exist, and mobile phones were the communication extraordinaire that people were turning to for communication purposes. And what about before that? When mobile phones and social networks didn’t exist? Surely people somehow managed to interact with each other! Yes of course...the good old face to face “having a cup of coffee” with a friend was how communication was formed.

“An online identity is a social identity that network users establish in online communities” (Online Identity, 2008). “Identities consist of self-conceptions. Some ideas of self are assigned, some are chosen: chosen, spiritual, intellectual, biological. Social constructivists believe that identities are formed by our relations to others – both people and things. Due to the ways in which relations change and for, once could then say “like a network, so are our identities”; as the network changes, so our relationships change, and so we change” (Ludewig, 2007).

Change...yes that is an interesting term used by Ludewig. How much have we changed in time, and what does the future hold for us? I once heard that communication and information is a powerful combination, and that the key to online communities is indeed communication. I feel that this communication can sometimes be the “alternative and lazy” way out of it. When our online and offline identities overlap they influence our self-concepts and what we stand for. What is going to happen to future generations of communication where online and offline lives have fewer boundaries. More to the point, I believe that these online identities are disconnected the offline identities, in the way that people are not interacting with each other half as much.
Gone are the days of the good old cup of coffee...


References

“Online Identity.” (2008). Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_identity (accessed May 14, 2008).


Ludewig, H. (2007). “The Paper in which I Discuss Ideas of Identity and Subjectivity in the Network Society and Provide a Basis of Inquiry at the Crossroads of Nanotechnologies.” CRDM 703. http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:9IxoJuj8-LwJ:e-heidi.com/files/vonLudewig_EmbodiIdentityNanoTechnologyy.doc+like+a+network,+so+are+our+identities%E2%80%9D%3B+as+the+network+changes,+so+our+relationships+change,+and+so+we+change%E2%80%9D+(Ludewig,+2007).&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au (accessed May 14, 2008).