They're e-mailing, IMing and downloading while writing the history essay. What is all that digital juggling doing to kids' brains and their family life?
But in this more narcissistic Internet era, people who were once happily anonymous view themselves as online minicelebrities with their own brands to promote.
vanity addresses
accounts on sites like Twitter and Facebook tend to show up at the top of the list when people search the Web
Heidegger, Nietzche, and Marx seem to be the best psychological/philosophical sources for defining identity in the light of social media advances. I haven't worked through this whole article, but it seems like a good source for quotes on identity that can say whatever you want them to mean, you know?
Facebook and Twitter may have pushed things into overdrive, but the idea of using communication tools as a form of “co-presence” has been around for a while. The Japanese sociologist Mizuko Ito first noticed it with mobile phones: lovers who were working in different cities would send text messages back and forth all night — tiny updates like “enjoying a glass of wine now” or “watching TV while lying on the couch.” They were doing it partly because talking for hours on mobile phones isn’t very comfortable (or affordable). But they also discovered that the little Ping-Ponging messages felt even more intimate than a phone call.
capable
A lot of this is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of.”
he little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives
Facebook and Twitter may have pushed things into overdrive, but the idea of using communication tools as a form of “co-presence” has been around for a while. The Japanese sociologist Mizuko Ito first noticed it with mobile phones: lovers who were working in different cities would send text messages back and forth all night — tiny updates like “enjoying a glass of wine now” or “watching TV while lying on the couch.” They were doing it partly because talking for hours on mobile phones isn’t very comfortable (or affordable). But they also discovered that the little Ping-Ponging messages felt even more intimate than a phone call.
the growing popularity of online awareness as a reaction to social isolation
human groupings naturally tail off at around 150 people: the “Dunbar number,” as it is known. Are people who use Facebook and Twitter increasing their Dunbar number, because they can so easily keep track of so many more people?
Constant online contact had made those ties immeasurably richer, but it hadn’t actually increased the number of them; deep relationships are still predicated on face time, and there are only so many hours in the day for that.
If you’re reading daily updates from hundreds of people about whom they’re dating and whether they’re happy, it might, some critics worry, spread your emotional energy too thin, leaving less for true intimate relationships.
Parasocial relationships can use up some of the emotional space in our Dunbar number, crowding out real-life people.
hey can observe you, but it’s not the same as knowing you.”
people in their 20s who were in college when Facebook appeared and have never lived as adults without online awareness. For them, participation isn’t optional. If you don’t dive in, other people will define who you are.
if only to ensure the virtual version of you is accurate, or at least the one you want to present to the world.
he dynamics of small-town life,
If anything, it’s identity-constraining now
result of all this incessant updating: a culture of people who know much more about themselves
t’s like the Greek dictum to “know thyself,” or the therapeutic concept of mindfulness.
Only 6% of the adult population has no one with whom they can discuss important matters or who they consider to be “especially significant” in their life.
contrary to the considerable concern that people’s use of the internet and cell phones could be tied to the trend towards smaller networks, we find that ownership of a mobile phone and participation in a variety of internet activities are associated with larger and more diverse core discussion networks. (Discussion networks are a key measure of people’s most important social ties.)