Cut and Paste Identities: Creating our own Realities Online

26/04/2010 Josh v 25 comments

Cut and Paste Identities:

Creating our own Realities Online

Introduction

Attempting to define ourselves online induces mild forms of identity crisis. As we present identity, mediate personal relationships and endeavor to control privacy through online mediums, we create and participate in a blending of realities. This fusion has resulted in new systems of social interaction which involve extreme changes to how we develop and present the self; to how we maintain and interact with personalized networks; and to how we connect and participate with communities. These are revolutionary methods of social interaction which benefit individuals and communities world wide, yet they impose restrictions on how we communicate and remove us from our immediate environments. As we explore and experience the realities of social interaction in the online world, we become ‘dwellers on the threshold between the real and the virtual’ (Turkle, S. 1997), obliged to develop our own systems for navigating identity and community across these mediums.

Interacting and socializing across this fusion of real and virtual forces us to create multiple identities. Creating and maintaining different representations of the online self gives us the ability to regulate our online social interactions. This allows participants to interact through enhanced, created or preferred representations of the self with an “unparalleled opportunity to play with one’s identity and to ‘try out’ new ones” (Turkle, S. 1997). These identities are extensions of our personalities which allow us to control privacy and influence how we are seen by other users. Identity becomes malleable as we interact with our personalized networks where “self and social identity are not static characteristics of participants but are negotiated through interactive discourse.” (Talamo, A., Ligorio, M.B. 2000).

Given that multiple identities are formed to navigate these social networks, members of online communities “become authors not only of text but of themselves, constructing selves through social interaction” (Turkle, S. 1997). This revolutionizes how we communicate and although ‘the net is only one of many ways in which the same people may interact’ (Wellman, B., Gulia, M. 1999), social networking sites in particular demonstrate how multiple identities are presented and communities socialize across the real and the virtual. Services such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace see the presentation of the self, along with entire communities constructed and regulated by each individual participant. We can see the real and the virtual collide across social networking sites with both positive and negative outcomes arising from this fusion.

Within these online communities, “the participants and the environment itself change: the participants establish new styles of interaction and the environment evolves” (Donath, J. 1999). Online mediums can become restrictive forms of interaction, forcing users to regulate and manage identity through technologies which continually change and don’t allow for the subtleties of human communication. Questions arise as to whether or not they are effective tools for social interaction. Although these environments are limited as mediums for social interaction they allow us to form global and diverse social networks. The majority of these contacts are recognized as ‘weak’ social ties, making up far reaching communities that demand little meaningful interaction or communication. Multiple identities are generated as a way to maintain control, privacy and perspective amongst the large numbers of people encountered across these mediums. However, cultivating and maintaining multiple identities across large online communities also removes us from our local and immediate environments.

Through online interaction we see the adaptation of social systems which help to govern community and provide a context for identity presentation in the online world. Online mediated communications require us to create divisions within the self, resulting in self regulated interactions that allow us to control privacy and social perceptions across our social networks. We are forced to create multiple representations of the self, along with our own social networks and online communities. The mediums we interact through online are restrictive forms of communication and focusing on them disassociates us from our local communities and immediate environments. These technologies and systems of communication induce mild forms of identity crisis as we continually re-invent the self to facilitate social interaction across this blending of the real and the virtual.

Presentation of the Multiple Self

Interacting with online social networks involves the creation and maintenance of multiple representations of the self. This lets us isolate different elements of our identities and communities, controlling privacy and influencing how we are perceived by other users. The self is constructed in entirely new ways and the people driving these multiple identities “become masters of self-presentation and self-creation. The very notion of an inner ‘true self’ is called into question.” (Turkle, S. 1997).

Participating and interacting with online communities and social networks require users to establish and present an online identity through which exchanges can take place. Yet interactions across social networks also “remove the privacy barriers that people keep between different aspects of their lives”’ (Donath, J., & boyd, d. 2004). Forming an online identity requires us to create divisions within the self, allowing us to maintain privacy by isolating different elements of our social networks. Regulating interaction in this way gives a user control over which communities they participate in and how they network with other members. Identity and community become mediated by the user – not dictated by peers, geography, environment or culture. We can understand our online identities “as multiple and fragmented, or as a society of selves” (Turkle, S. 1997) which let us control and protect both our identity and our privacy.

Internet technologies also shape our perceptions of identity and community by mediating the different manifestations of our online selves. Regulating the self in order to retain privacy and to participate in online community changes perceptions of personal identity and how participants relate to society. It forces users to discover “ways to control the degree of personal identity they wish to expose online” (Donath, J. 1999). This allows users to navigate and control different elements of their online communities, providing new ways to present identity and mediate social interactions. The ability to create multiple identities online presents unique opportunities to explore and construct social networks.

By regulating multiple representations of the self in the online world we can control our privacy and influence how we are perceived across our social networks. ‘Online experiences challenge what many have traditionally called “identity”’ (Turkle, S. 1997) and the lines between real identity and creating an identity are often ambiguous and distorted online. Through creating and maintaining multiple online identities we can isolate sections of our networks and retain privacy.

Creating our Online Networks

The flow of information, social interaction, digital communications and the presentation of the virtual self has seen countless internet communities evolving online. Social networking sites show how users are forced to construct communities and networks while also regulating contact and interaction with other participants. The identities we present across these networks are extensions of the self, allowing us to experience a fusion of new and traditional forms of social interaction.

Social networking sites have developed into ubiquitous forms of communication which influence many parts of society. They are not only ‘sources of emotional and financial support and of information about jobs, other people, and the world at large’ (Donath, J., & boyd, d. 2004), they also give users the ability to control identity and social interactions. Our online presentations of the self become malleable and fluid as we engage our social networks. We can develop and maintain identity, community and social interaction through personal and public networks in these virtual realms; we can also refine and extend our existing traditional networks across the online world. ‘Virtual reality is not “real”, but has a relationship to the real’ (Turkle, S. 1997) and the situations and communities that we encounter online are extensions of the physical world.

There are many advantages to cultivating large and diverse communities across social networking sites. This is seen when ‘a person who has many weak yet heterogeneous ties has access to a wide range of information and opportunities’ (Donath, J., & boyd, d. 2004); and when the ‘ambient awareness’ of our associates, peers, friends or families connects us ‘like a type of E.S.P’ (Thompson, C. 2008). Networks are setup and managed easily in the online world and all interactions can be mediated by the user. These communities can grow quite large and we create divisions across our networks through the varying levels of contact maintained with different associates. We regulate and control our online interactions by maintaining multiple identities as we connect with different groups of people across our networks. This melding of our off and online realities presents ways for us to interact with larger and more diverse communities.

Creating and regulating our own online communities has many benefits and is easy to accomplish. Unique methods of social interaction have evolved from these mediums. We control how we connect and interact with other participants and these systems of communication allow us to maintain large and diverse online communities by regulating multiple identities across our social networks.

Interacting with Online Communities

There is no disputing the fact that community and identity flourish in the online sphere or that online technologies have changed the very natures of how we interact and socialize. However, the restrictive nature of the technologies involved cannot convey all of the nuances of face to face communication. Although we can generate large communities online, we can find ourselves restricted to socializing with only a certain number of closer contacts, unable to engage meaningfully with the vast majority of our social networks. The mediums that we interact through are not flexible enough to socialize with all aspects of an online community and this creates distance between ourselves and most of our social networks. This negatively influences how we present our identity and connect with online communities, yet it also gives us access to information that other members of our networks have published. These same restrictive and inflexible mediums ‘bring back the dynamics of small-town life, where everybody knows your business.’ (Thompson, C. 2008).

Even though online communities “have developed their own patois, with codes and linguistic patterns” (Donath, J. 1999), there are also restrictions and limitations when interacting across social networking sites. The technologies we use to engage with these communities are effective, yet often rigid methods of communication. In the online world we socialize through mediums where “the skills people need to interpret situations and manage impressions are different” (boyd, D. 2007). Communities develop systems of interaction which are limited by the technologies and a lack of visual signals encountered in online environments. “Identity cues are sparse in the virtual world, but not non-existent” (Donath, J. 1999) and this can lead to us becoming isolated from different aspects of our social networks, forced to create our own methods of interaction.

The nature of online communities also disassociates and distracts us from our immediate realities. While online social interactions let us engage with global networks, focus is inadvertently removed from our local and immediate environments, connecting us with many irrelevant and unnecessary aspects of society. Skepticism towards social networking sites question the nature of these mediums as effective tools for nurturing community… “What sort of relationships are these? What does it mean to have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook? What kind of friends are they, anyway?” (Thompson, C. 2008). The majority of our online networks are recognized as weak social ties, yet they develop into important resources which offer participants interaction with broader and more diverse elements of society. As we connect with online communities we control how we interact with the different members of our networks and weaker ties in a network are often ignored until they become useful or necessary to engage with. However it is through these weak ties and the ‘ambient awareness’ across our social networks that we can experience many of the missing elements found in traditional communities.

By presenting multiple identities across our social networks we can communicate and interact with diverse communities in the online world. These new systems of social behaviors allow us to socialize with close contacts while maintaining large and diverse social networks. The mediums we interact through are often restrictive and not able to communicate the subtleties of face to face communications. Interacting across these spheres also forces us to isolate and forget about different elements of our social networks, only interacting meaningfully with small circles of close contacts. By extending multiple identities into the online world our perceptions of community and reality change, removing us from our immediate environments and traditional realities. This allows us to look beyond local contacts and incorporate global communities into our social networks.

Conclusion

Participating in online interaction by creating and regulating multiple representations of the self incites mild forms of identity crisis. Interacting online requires us to continually reinvent the self and create our own communities. We are also forced to create and publish multiple forms of identity in order to maintain control over our privacy and influence how we are perceived by others. Our online social interactions are extensions of reality with identity becoming malleable across this fusion of the real and the virtual.

As our online networks grow and we are bombarded with unnecessary information and insignificant connections across these mediums, we become disassociated from both traditional reality and our local communities. We become connected with larger communities where our networks consist mostly of ‘weak ties’, forcing us to formulate systems which let us control our social interactions. These interactions remove us from our immediate realities and local environments, and while it can be interesting to read what an old friend is having for breakfast via a microblog update, this information generally holds little value to our immediate environment.

Digital and web based technologies have completely transformed our understandings of global communications. They give us the ability to interact and share resources with people from around the world. These mediums are restrictive when presenting identity and participating with online communities and they can also disassociate us from our immediate environments. The ability to regulate identity and social interactions online requires us to engage through mediums which create separations within the self and force us to create divisions across our social networks. This forced fragmentation of the self sees us encounter mild forms of identity crisis as we create ways to navigate this fusion of the real and the virtual.

References

1. boyd, d. (2007).

Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.

In D. Buckingham (Ed.), MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume.

Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.
Available: http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf

2. Donath, J. (1999).

Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community.

In P. Kollock, & M. A. Smith (Eds.), Communities in Cyberspace (pp. 29-59). New York: Routledge.
Available: http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

3. Donath, J., & boyd, d. (2004).

Public Displays of Connection.

BT Technology Journal, 22(4), 71-82.
DRAFT Available: http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers/Donath/socialnetdisplay.draft.pdf

4. McIlvenny, P. (1999).

Avatars R Us? Discourses of Community and Embodiment in Intercultural Cyberspace. Intercultural Communication

Available:

http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr1/mcilvenny.htm

5. Talamo, A., & Ligorio, M.B. (2000)

Identity in the cyberspace:

The social construction of identity through on-line virtual interactions.

Paper presented at the First International Conference on the Dialogical Self,

Nijmegen, The Netherlands. pg15