Traditional dualists described metaphysics as a split between two kinds of reality: mental, spiritual, thinking substance as in the case of God and myself and physical or extended substance such as body, planets, mountains, trees, animals. Early philosophers such as Descartes presented this concept as metaphysical dualism or Cartesian psychophysical dualism. In the modern world with the emergence of the Internet and the emergence of web 2.0 in particular social interaction has taken over the digital space. The addition of social interaction via Internet has created another layer within the traditional dualism – metaphysical trialsm.
Social communication begins with the creation of the digital personas, which interact by recording their thoughts within the Internet space. Digital persona is an electronic representation of someone’s mental, spiritual or physical state, but only in a particular moment in time, which multiple internal and external agents can influence. Individuals can represent themselves by means of creating profiles on various sites, leaving comments, writing blogs, micro blogging, participating in an email exchange, sharing music and so on. The same physical person can be represented in many different ways by creating different digital personals to feed the need of targeting particular perceptions and reaching a distinct target audience.
On Twitter, users have a short profile, and 140-character limitation on their status updates. Twitter users can choose to follow other digital personas based on similar interest characteristics, desire to be in the know on the thoughts those users have, or simply a way to be popular by any means necessary which would include creating an abundant list of those they follow and those that are following them.
On Facebook, a digital persona can add particular groups of people that bring some value or life to the persona’s binary environment. Many are mindful of what they share with others. Some use the websites as a way to network, so naturally they present themselves as professionals of some trade, as is the case with the LinkedIn Professional Network. Those same people can have profiles on other sites such as dating where they want to show themselves as desirable by that niche audience. Depending on the interest and the need to attract certain type of participation, niche coalitions are formed in the form of followers, friends, or matches depending on the virtual environment they are participating in. The result of these multifaceted activities is that someone’s digital representation can be in many virtual environments at the same time. Thus, the representation of once physical persona can vary by the virtual environment they are in at that point in time.
Since the digital persona is an electronic representation of how someone describers his worth or self. It is not necessarily the way others see the persona, and not even a way the persona sees itself. It’s a way the persona chooses to represent itself in a moment of time within a certain layer of the virtual environment.
In a sense a digital persona represented in multiple layers of the virtual system is omnipresent. Digital selves are recorded in the moment when they are tied to a particular emotion and expressed in a stream of mind, and here is when it splits from the traditional dualism. Those digitized bits of life once released into the virtual world then take a life of their own. The individual is no longer interacting with the virtual world, but others are there to react to what was recorded. The digital persona is still there to interact with other digital personas without any control from the originator. Others who encounter the digital persona interact with it by either getting inspired, disagreeing, sharing their opinion of that persona or simply ignoring it. In this sense the virtual persona lives on in a different layer of time and reality.
This virtual life is by no means eternal. It can be, if the digital self is left to fend for itself, but eventually the popularity diminishes, and the persona gets forgotten and dies. Else the physical owner of the digital self can remove the profiles, and kill the virtual life. Or there can be a virus or a systematic removal of records that will bring the deathly plaque that will wipe out any impacted binary life.
1 comment:
I agree with the concept that each digital persona can be a manifestation of the communication vehicle and what the author is attempting to convey. Artists attempt to reinvent themselves on a continual basis with each publication, piece of music or painting. Life and personalities evolve perpetually. The digital age allows for the proliferation of personality variations.
True, each personality output (Twitter/Facebook/Linked In and so on) is a variation of the individual and targeted towards a specific audience. If someone's digital image fails to generate the appropriate response it is simple to "start over" by registering a new account.
Eventually, the number of digital personas created by an individual must reach a critical mass where specific traits fail to differentiate one persona from the next. In the short term the quantity of personas will diverge from that of the physical individual. In the long term we may end up experiencing a convergence as digital personas come to reflect that of the physical person...on the other hand, maybe this persona is becoming crazy. Only time will tell.
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