Looking toward cyberspace: Beyond grounded sociology

Pg 643 – “A rapidly expanding system of networks, collectively known as the Internet, links millions of people together in new spaces that are changing the way we think, the nature of our sexuality, the form of our communities, our very identities.”

~ By changing communities it changes cultures, which, in turn, of course changes identity.

Pg 643 – “…How people negotiate the virtual and the “real” as they represent themselves on computer screens linked through the Internet. For many people, such experiences challenge what they have traditionally called “identity,” which they are moved to recast in terms of multiple windows and parallel lives.”

~ Not only multiple identities in the real world, but multiple identities in the online world. Maybe this is yet another level of horizontal and vertical identity integration.

Pg 643 – “Online life is not the only factor that is push them in this direction; there is no simple sense in which computers are causing a shift in notions of identity. It is, rather, that today’s life on the screen dramatizes and concretizes a range of cultural trends that encourage us to think of identity in terms of multiplicity and flexibility.”

~ I’m not sure if this idea comes completely through online life, but multiplicity and flexibility is how I think of identity.

Pg 643 – “…One key element of online life and its impact on identity: the creation and projection of constructed personae into virtual space.”

~ Creation of identity through choice adds yet another dimension into my theory. Most of the things I’ve been describing have been fairly passive. This is a completely active identity formation, whereas being influenced by other cultures to adjust your identity is partially passive. I think that creating an online persona might be the only way to create a completely active identity.

Pg 643 – “In cyberspace, it is well known, one’s body can be represented by one’s own textual description: The obese can be slender, the beautiful plain.”

~ Conflicting identities appear more online vs. real life rather than just in real life identities. Possibly this is more horizontal identity?

Pg 643 – “The relative anonymity of life on the screen – one has the choice of being known only by one’s chosen “handle” or online name – gives people the chance to express often unexplored aspects of the self. Additionally, multiple aspects of self can be explored in parallel.”

~ Interesting that dissonance can be created or solved through online projections.

Pg 644 – “Cycling through virtual environments is made possible by the existence of what have come to be called “windows” in modern computing environments. Windows are a way to work with a computer that makes it possible for the machine to place you in several contexts at the same time.”

~ Goes back to the other article about windows.

Pg 644 – “As a user, you are attentive to just one of the windows on your screen at any given moment, but in a certain sense, you are a presence in all of them at all times.”

~ Goes back to the other article about windows and the idea of a computer being a person.

Pg 644 – “The windows metaphor suggests a distributed self that exists in many worlds and plays many roles at the same time.”

~ I really like this metaphor if you can’t tell.

Pg 644 – “For some people, it is a place to “act out” unresolved conflicts, to play and replay characterological difficulties on a new an exotic stage. For others, it provices an opportunity to “work through” significant personal issues, to use the new materials of cybersociality to reach for new resolutions.”

~ The same item being used for different things. Is it an identity-related possession (from other source)?

Pg 644 – “In this context, experimentation can become the norm rather than a brave departure. Relatively consequence-free experimentation faciltitates the development of a “core self,” a personal sense of what gives life meaning that Erikson called “identity.”

~ “Core self” = “identity” to her, not to me. “Core self” = Global self made up of many different identities.

Pg 645 – “…That each of us is a multiplicity of parts, fragments, and desiring connections,,,”

~ I think of this in the sense that identities want to coordinate and find other matching identities.

Pg 647 – “…The many manifestations of multiplicity in our culture, including the adoption of online personae, are contributing to a general reconsideration of traditional, unitary notions of identity.”

~ I think I read this somewhere else, too. Interesting how a lot of people relate this to online.

Pg 647 – “The flexible self is not unitary, not are its parts stable entities. A person cycles through its aspects, and these are themselves ever-changing and in constant communication with each other.”

~ This is how I see the global self like a planet, kind of. The basic entity will always be there, but it will not always be the same thing.
Turkle, S. (1999). Looking toward cyberspace: Beyond grounded sociology. Contemporary Sociology, 28(6). Retrieved November 9, 2008, from JSTOR database.