Identity (Issues) in a Digital Age

Hey! So, this coming week is where Josh and I are kickstarting things as content catalysts.

Before I get into this, can I just say that I’m not sure that I actually wanted to tackle this the first week of student-led presentations – I usually like to sit back and watch what others do, get a feel for how things are going to go. I like to see my exemplars before committing.

Apparently not this time around.

I blame my subject. Seriously. I teach English Language Arts, and since I started way back when, one of my favourite ELA courses to teach is 30B, the first unit for which is Search for Self. I don’t have any 30B this semester, and am missing it, so when I saw this topic, I just thought, yup, that’s the one.

So, here we are.

Identity (Issues) in a Digital World

I’ve got the video introduction linked above, introducing the topic, and then I’ve got the three articles that I drew heavily from linked below.

My focus, so article one, was The Illusion of Self in the Digital Age: Unraveling our Multiple Identities. I really liked this one. Not because it was shorter, although that’s definitely a bonus, but I like a straightforward style of writing, and a lot of what was talked about the article made sense to me. On the few apps and platforms that I use, I can totally see the fragmentation – you clearly see more of one type of content than another. Not completely – there are always people who are breaking the mold, or who are unafraid to be 100% honest about areas of their lives that others maybe don’t touch. And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, or venturing into the TMI side of things.

Article two is Identity Formation in the Digital Age. Similar to the first article, this one discusses how technology impacts identity formation, focusing on social media’s influence on young people. Eli Gottlieb, a cognitive psychologist, explains that the internet hasn’t changed identity formation so much as it has shifted it, and perhaps some of that shift has been away from authenticity. He stresses the need for more research on the effects that social media is having, especially as issues like teen suicide rise despite other risky behaviors declining, which I found to be a very interesting addition to this article. Gottlieb advocates for deeper understanding and guidance in education, rather than fear-driven responses to social media, which I also agree with.

The third article I found (that didn’t come with a pretty image to spice things up – sorry), and I focused on pieces of this one more than the whole, was Beyond Screen Time: Identity Development in the Digital Age. This is much more the typical scholarly article, and I don’t know about you guys, but I have learned to skim and scan these like a pro. Specifically, I really honed in on the Identity Development in Adolescents, and parts of the Intrapersonal . I like how they talk about identity being a hybrid thing now; technology has become such a huge part of our lives that of course pieces of our identity come from where we are spending our time when we’re online. They also caution that we can’t, as a blanket statement, decry all social media and online platforms as terrible things, because they aren’t, or they don’t need to be.

So where do I stand on identity and technology? I think it’s complicated, and there’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of answer. For kids who are more concerned about fitting in, or worried about the type of reactions their going to get, I can see technology having a more negative and restrictive effect on identity development. For kids who don’t use/aren’t allowed/don’t have access to technology, identity is still a complicated thing, but technology obviously isn’t going to play a huge role in that. For kids who don’t care, I think they’re going to do what they want regardless. You see where I’m going? It really depends on so many factors. And the second article touches on the fact that we’ve always tried to present ourselves in particular ways, given where we are. Students (most of the time) are going to act differently around their teachers vs. at home with family vs. out with their teammates, or wherever they’re spending their time. So that development has always been a complicated and potentially fragmented process.

I think with a lot of these topics, it all comes down to education. These platforms and apps, technology itself, isn’t going away. Unless the computers rise up and lock us out, in which case debates like this are all going to be moot anyway. We need to model behaviour, talk to them about good and bad usage, parents need to be overseeing their kids activities as they first venture into online interactions. And we need to realize that just because identity development has shifted, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Something to be aware of? Absolutely. But not necessarily anything we need to panic about. Ha! Here I am wondering now if I should have focused on that second article instead, because I seem to be coming to the same conclusion as Gottlieb; we can’t allow fear of change/technology to dictate our responses to the changes that are happening.