The digital self

I’m going to use this exercise as preparation work for Assignment 4. Having decided that my project will have an autobiographical bias representing my career as a nurse, I will examine different types of self and how they fit in with the digital self.

McLeod (2008) explains Freud’s three-part personality in drawings. Referred to as the id, ego and superego, they all develop at various stages of human development. The id is the primitive part of personality and the ego and superego manage it. Basically, the id is instinct, biological, aggressive, demands attention, illogical, irrational and fantasy oriented. The ego reasons, makes decisions, solves problems, and compromises to follow societies rules and etiquette. The ego doesn’t understand right and wrong. “The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt […]  The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society.” McLeod, (2008)

However, research has provided new evidence that personality traits can evolve and changed throughout life. Online research by Srivastava surveyed more than 132,000 adults ages 21 to 60. “The online assessment tested two prevailing theories: The "hard plaster" theory, which holds that personality is set by age 30, and the "soft plaster" theory, which says change is ongoing and personality is often variable, depending on the situation at hand. In this massive online survey, soft plaster won.” Rodgers (2016) refers to this as the Elastic Self.

Donald Winnicot (1960’s) a “"true self" that is the instinctive core of our personality and must be nurtured and realized. Then there is the "false self" that is created to protect the "true self" from insult and danger. We all have a "true self" that is complex and fragile, but ultimately, is our essence.”

Susan Bright (2010) explains self in self portraits as a “representation of emotions, an outward expression of inner feelings, penetrating self-analysis and self-contemplation that might bestow an immortality of sorts upon the artist.” (Bright, 2010:8) In the postmodern era, the self-image was seen as indexical and reflexive, suggesting that there is “no true self” losing authenticity through division and merging and becoming false. Representation of the self has always been created by the author. Self-portraiture is still popular with artists trying to create an objective through the study of their identity.

 “Based on the analysis of teenagers’ online experience, the present study shows that others on the Internet constitute a distinctive “looking glass” that produces a “digital self” that differs from the self-formed offline.” Zhao (2005). Cooley (1964) proposed that others serve as a mirror in which we see ourselves. We form our view of who we are based on interactions with other people. Like looking in a mirror, we learn from responses from others. “Others communicate their attitudes toward us not merely in the expressions they give, but more important, in the expressions they “give off” (Goffman 1959). Through both verbal and nonverbal behaviors, others convey to us, either purposefully or unwittingly, their appraisals of our self-presentations, which in turn shape how we view ourselves.” (Zhao, 2005) This is nonverbal such as tone of voice, facial expression and gesture which is either true or false. By interacting with people face to face, we work out what is true and false, and see what others think of us.

However, according to Zhao, (2005) this theory doesn’t work when applied to a digital world such as the internet. “differentiate between the presentation of self and the conception of self. Although they are closely related, these two aspects of self-construction are affected by different factors. Whereas how we present ourselves to others is influenced by whether we believe others can directly see us or not, how we perceive ourselves is influenced by the extent to which we are able to directly see others and how they respond to us.” Zhao (2005)

Mead (1934) suggested that the self evolves in 2 stages in social interaction; self is constituted by the organization of the attitudes of the significant others in particular social contexts developing multiple selves and then integrating these to represent the views of society. 

Looking at development of the digital self on line, Zhao (2005) describes 4 stages: inwardly oriented, narrative, retractable, and multiplied.

Digital self is a mask of our true self. People needs to look at technology etiquette e.g. own phone use and the impact it has on the world around them. Phones distract from family life so is the person using the technology showing their real self and values or conforming to societies demands? (Hicks, 2010)

Susan Bright (2010) suggests that self-portraiture is popular in vernacular photography for sharing but questions whether certain poses are selfies. Photographers are exploring this in different ways through photo booths as a neutral space and Ole John Aandal – Juvenilia (2007-) who is studying teenagers domestic body part selfies.

Some photographers become impersonators and create fake identities to enable them to study peoples’ obsession with fame often revealing themselves later. Nikki S Lee ‘s Project series (1997-2001) examined issues of race, gender and sexuality by infiltrating groups in New York, allowing the study of self and the other. Viewers concentrate on the similarities between Lee and the group rather than the differences. (Bright, 2010:11)

Bright ‘s book Auto Focus, The self portrait in Contemporary Photography divides self portraits into 5 categories; autobiography, body, masquerade, studio and album and performance. In each of her chapters are illustrated with photographers who fit into these categories. I will research this separately for assignment prep.

References

Bright, S. (2010) Auto Focus: The self-portrait in contemporary photography. London. Thames and Hudson. (pp8,11)

Hicks, T. (2010) Understanding and creating your digital self. Psychology today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-digital-self/201008/understanding-and-creating-your-digital-self last accessed 20/11/17

McLeod, S. (2016) Id, ego and Super Ego. Simply Psychology. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html last accessed 20/11/17

Rodgers, J (2016) Altered Ego. Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200611/altered-ego last accessed 20/11/17

Zhao, S. (2005) The Digital Self: Through the Looking Glass of Telecopresent Others. Symbolic Interaction. Available at:  http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.514.6930&rep=rep1&type=pdf last accessed 20/11/17

Additional research notes