Cultural theorist, Paul Virilio, stated, “Invent the ship and you invent the shipwreck.” This statement has been applied to the internet and all that comes with it – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Just as a ship can help you travel the world, they also are capable of sinking.
Where the internet maybe “sinking,” if you will, is where it comes to identity development and maintenance. Most of us who are older, grew up in an age where we played with our friends, fought, hugged, gossiped, and made up. We developed our identity in the framework of live interactions, in real time. While you may have made some gooberish (new made up word) mistake today – in a couple of days it was forgotten. Your identity continued to develop.
But today, we post things on the internet that document our identity – real or perceived – in the moment, and there is no room for growth and change. The post is in the digital world seemingly forever. As one New York psychologist, Leora Trub, states, “What isn’t documented isn’t meaningful or real.” She goes on to say, “When you’re developing a sense of self in that context, you’re not spending much time thinking about what’s important to you – you’re thinking about what other people value.”
And it’s not just teenagers who experience this. More and more adults are also finding their identity becoming blurred by their time on social media. One individual who realized the need to protect herself from social media’s influence declared, “I’m just not spending mindless moments looking at other people. I don’t have to fight a battle with myself that was created by others for me.”
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27 If we will remind ourselves whose image we are created in, finding our identity might be easier for all ages. Just a thought.