Digital Identity

Digital identity has become extremely important in the modern world, particularly with the birth of social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace in which people are encouraged to share their experiences with members alike. Communication which was once shaped by spoken and body language has transformed into the world of technology, which at times can seem highly efficient what with faster communication between individuals and the ability to hold contact with someone you wouldn’t necessarily, due to simply being ‘friends’ with them on facebook and receiving their daily updates. However digital identity does have a negative side. Through the evolution of technology it has allowed individuals to become isolated from reality. Something seemingly harmless such as an Ipod, can be viewed as having a negative effect on someone’s life which is illustrated in the article ‘How technology effects us’. The author writes ‘by putting in your earbuds and immersing yourself in music while in public, you are disconnecting yourself from the real world’. This means that the individual is separating themselves from everyday life, we are not experiencing new things, making personal relationships and our brain is often not working to its full potential through problem solving and the like. In the extreme case, it disallows us to fully function as adults in society, and could create a number of problems, particularly for generations to come who will be immersed in this evolving culture more so than we are now. Technology is the new way of life, and with it constantly evolving, it is steadily becoming harder and harder to live without it. Digital identity could create problems for us in the future due to increased unawareness of the dangers technology can bring. Traditional forms of identity such as gender, age, race and so forth are becoming less important, and this can be seen on social networking websites such as Facebook where often these identifiers are disclosed by the member. You can almost exist anonymously within the world of social networks if you choose to do so. Because Facebook is so familiar to us, we do not realise the potential dangers in treating people such as this as if they are safe. Would we share so much of our life with someone we had simply met on the street? The world is becoming a lot more open and with the encouragement of less social interaction is set to become the leading source of identity of society.