Questions of identity have perhaps never been so pervasive or salient as they seem now, in today’s culture. These questions in personal, cultural, political, and global identity go hand in hand with the biggest issues of our times: politics, ethics, meaningful life, validated death. To begin, a sampling of talks and articles about digital and technological identity building –
- – Read: Reputation Management on Social Media – Pew Research Center, 2013
- – Read: Online Personality Influences Real-life Identity – Psych Central, 2015
- – Read: Growing up digital: How the Internet affects teen identity – Deseret News, 2014
- – Read: How Many Social Network Identities Is Too Many? – NPR, 2011
- – The Effects of Multiple Identities on Psychological Well-Being – Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2008
- -Read: Mixing the Digital, Social, and Cultural: Learning Identity, and Agency in Youth Participation – The John and D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 2008
- -An extended version: Youth, Identity, And Digital Media – The John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 2008
- -Watch: Interview with Dr. Wendy Chun. (note point 7:52, where Dr. Chun discusses how technological, external stimulus becomes habit and spontaneously produced, becoming a part of an individual’s identity.) – UO Today, 2015
- – Read: An analysis of whether or not to delete online accounts, from a site that offers portals to delete your personal online accounts – godelete.com
- – Watch: a selection of TED talks on social media and identity-driven interactions
- – Read: Facebook Offers New Options for Digital Life After Death
- – Peruse: online services for preserving personal memories, and even ongoing digital interactions, posthumously
Public shaming and cyberbullying in the digital sphere demonstrates some of the most powerful intersections of in-person and online interactions. When an aspect or moment of a person’s life is held up to public, digital, widespread scrutiny, this can define a person’s identity in momentous, life-changing, and often devastating ways.
- – Read/Watch: Jon Rons0n on online identity and public shaming:
- – ‘Overnight, everything I loved was gone’: the internet shaming of Lindsey Stone – The Guardian, 2015
- – When online shaming spirals out of control – TED Talks, 2015
- – The Politics of Digital Shaming – (review and summary of Ronson’s book: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed) The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology & Society, 2015
- – Watch: The Price of Shame – Monica Lewinsky, TED Talks, 2015
- – Read: Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray – New York Times, 2010
- – Peruse: Research conducted by the Cyberbullying Research Center, published in several well-known journals