What are the implications for individual identity in relation to the rise in Internet cultures?

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Owen Brown

What are the implications for individual identity in relation to the rise in Internet cultures?

To begin with, it is important to define what is meant by identity.  “Identity relates to the understandings people hold about who they are and what is meaningful to them” (Giddens, 2001, 29).  One of the ways in which people build up their identity is by interacting with others and experiencing things.  In the pre-internet world, all the people with whom it is possible to interact with and the experiences available are limited by geography, ie. it is only possible to interact with people who you can meet face to face.  It is possible to have a relationship with someone based purely on the use of telephones of letter writing, however, it is unlikely that random mailings will inspire long term friendships.  The internet, however, seems to be unique in that random people can end up talking and building friendships.  The possibility for a far wider range of interactions means that the possibility for identity building is greatly enhanced.

The power of the internet and the services available cannot be ignored, to the sceptic; the internet is just a lot of text with a few pictures thrown in.  The total immersion necessary to simulate a new reality is still the stuff of science fiction.  However, Heather Bromberg argues that through the use of “MUDs (multi-user dungeons/dimensions…and IRC (internet relay chat)…the experience of networked, text-based virtual reality can be at least as intense as that of multi-sensory VR” (Bromberg, 1996, 144).  In this way, humanities greatest asset – the imagination is used to the full to transform the text on a screen into an all-encompassing new environment.  Is this therefore, any less of a valid experience than that of reading a book or watching a film, where the user loses themselves in the plot, the advantage of the internet is that rather than the activity being solitary, the user is actually interacting with people across the globe.

The rise in the use of the internet means that there are vastly more possibilities for communication.  On an anecdotal level, I have used the internet to keep in touch with my friend in Washington DC and read reports from another friend’s trekking holiday in Vietnam.  Only a few years ago, this kind of communication and ease of communication would have been unthinkable.

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As Marshall McLuhan prophesised, technology is making the world a smaller place.  For example, it is possible for me to watch a live stream of television from Hiroshima (www.rcc.net/live/live.ram) or anywhere else in the world for that matter.  The internet enables the user to build a global identity rather than being restrained by geography.  Shopping can be done on American websites and shipped to any location in the world, indeed I have bought books from Amazon.com (www.amazon.com), buying books which aren’t published in the United Kingdom and had them shipped to my address in England with very little delay ...

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