Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
[id] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation | the part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle and are modified by the ego and the superego before they are given overt expression. |
] | Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006. |
[ahy-dee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation | 1. | a means of identification, as a card or bracelet containing official or approved identification information. |
| 2. | to identify. |
| 3. | to issue an ID to: Go to the admissions office if you haven't been ID'd yet. |
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
The concept of net identity is a complex and fascinating one. I think about it often enough: what net identity do I want to have? Who am in this vast cyber society? A blogging babe? The tell-all type, perhaps....
*I remember my early flirtations with the World Wide Web. We met over a free trial of
Keeping the definition of id in mind, now with special attention on the words "seek satisfaction", consider the natural human desire for attention, affection, and human connectivity. Being the innately social creatures that we are, it's no wonder we live in the age of social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook. The experience of these sorts of online communities covers all those bases of satisfaction. The internet is HUMAN CONNECTIVITY to the extreme. A hip-hop group called The Foreign Exchange birthed their music online. Impressive as their underground sound is, it comes as a shock that the members “have never held a telephone conversation: never met face to face. That's right. Breaking the current barriers set up between music and geography, The Foreign Exchange conceptualized, conceived and completed [their album] Connected by means of instant messenger and the world wide web” [www.okayplayer.com].
I’ve read two articles recently on the issue of blog/profile culture, one of which was entitled “The Decline and Fall of the Private Self,” something I found in an issue of Psychology Today; I agreed completely with some assertions I was presented with therein, namely that we often divulge too much of ourselves in these online spaces, that we suffer from a sort of celebrity-syndrome. That is, online communities allow us to feel like we were all casted in the latest and greatest season of The Real World. And there we have the ATTENTION component: a way to paint a picture of ourselves in our own "real" way, by posting certain photos, and showcasing selective movies or quotes or whatever.
Online profiles allow us to say, ‘This is who I am, and this is what I like or don’t like’ in such a way that produces a feeling of importance, however big or small. Even if you make your profile a private profile, you’re still making a statement about yourself by doing so. You still have an audience, and you imply the following message: 'behold, unfortunate un-friended ones - to you, I will remain a mystery :P!'
Whether you like to admit it or not, some part of you enjoys the feeling of being the center of the cyber stage thanks to some web address(es). Others of you know very well that you love attention. When we pop up on the facebook mini-feed from time to time, there’s a part of us that is relishing in that 15 seconds of fame. I exist! I have new friends/ I know your friends! I posted something. I’m posting this. This is me…or at least some the netID version 4.0 of me, copyright Facebook 2007 me, updated 2 minutes ago me!
When we write for the public in a blog, like I am doing right now, our words are, in a way, a show. We take some degree of care with what we write and how we write it because we are consciously or subconsciously expecting a reaction (not necessarily a particular reaction, but a reaction nonetheless) whenever we publish something. Like when we tag people in a note, we’re saying, ‘Hey, look here!’ and sometimes we even have particular agendas, certain people we’ll want to elicit some sort of mental or emotional response from. On other occasions, we simply want to “let go” of something…to all of our Facebook or Myspace friends, all the hundreds of them out there floating around in this cyber www.onderland. And our netID-self hopes that they care.
