You and Your Profile

"Identity is in many ways at the center of contemporary society, as evidenced not only by the prevalence of "identity politics" but also by the challenges posed to human self-conception by recent developments in social media, communication technology, and the increasing digitalization of life. Personal and collective identity, often related to questions of gender, race, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation, is constantly questioned, pursued, acclaimed, and renegotiated-not so much face to face but in a virtual sphere that demands almost perpetual attention and dedication to shaping and presenting one's personal and public "profiles." The age-old question "Who am I" has thus gained new existential, sociopolitical, and, not least, moral significance. This book presents an innovative philosophical analysis of personal identity. It shows how humans shaped their self-portraits in the past and how the "technology of identity"-the means by which we create a picture of ourselves-is undergoing a momentous sea-change at this very moment in history. In premodern times humans defined themselves in terms of sincerity--by living up to the social roles they occupied in their families and communities. In the modern world authenticity became the main paradigm of identity formation: humans found their identity not so much in the external social sphere but rather internally in a unique, original, independent self. Today, Moeller and D'Ambrosio argue, humans create their self-portraits online-usually in the form of various private, professional, economic, and political profiles, which are then exposed to "social validation feedback loops"--likes, clicks, retweets, and other forms of ratings or rankings. The advantages of profiling--transparency, visibility, and self-responsibility--are countered by critics who point to the loss of privacy, originality, and individuality. The authors intervene in this debate not by defending one side or the other, as most commentators do, but by outlining strategies of maintaining sanity in a "profilic" society by developing capacities to distance oneself from one's public identity and cope with the social pressures and stress resulting from the demands of social media"--