The
biggest question I have after reading Eli Pariser’s essay “The You Loop” might
be whether identity and image are in fact one and the same. Pariser begins his
essay by quoting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and highlighting Zuckerberg’s
view that to have more than one identity means one might somehow lack
integrity. My trouble in understanding this question of identity (or online
identity) is in the whole idea of what is meant by identity. I’m not sure
Zuckerberg even would have a full idea of this, though he might think he does.
Looking at Merriam-Webster, identity is defined as “qualities, beliefs, etc.,
that make a particular person or group different from others.” For image,
however, the definition reads “the idea that people have about someone or
something.” I feel that what Zuckerberg refers to as identity is actually
image. The Internet can only really have an “idea” of who we are. It cannot
fully represent who we are as individuals. It cannot fully comprehend each and
every identity. It should not, no matter what Zuckerberg thinks. Even Pariser
writes that Facebook “draws on the more public self, it necessarily has less
room for private interests and concerns” (115). While this might ultimately be
a good thing for a user, it means what does appear on screen is an image, a
partial image at that. I had a friend say to me once that it seemed like
everyone on Facebook was happy, and it is true that so much of what is posted
as “identity” or “image” are the things that make life look “good.” That, too,
does not paint a clear picture of a person’s identity, because we cannot see
all the nuances that shape an identity. For instance, my identity, my real
identity, is shaped by the mistakes I have made as much as by any of my
accomplishments, but nowhere on Facebook does it say, “Hey, let us know who
your ex-husband is why he is your ex-husband,” nor would I want to display that kind of information on my
page.
Still, the
danger of boxing people into a single image, and claiming that image is
identity, is that in the cyber world
the two are often, if not always, seen as one. It might even seem that someone like Zuckerberg prefers it that way. Although, his intention to make everything transparent seems less plausible if the identity is only really an image. Pariser does write “We’re now on
the verge of self-fulfilling identities, in which the Internet’s distorted
picture of us becomes who we really are” (112). This also means that an image perceived as identity is becoming identity. In some cases, perhaps that is
true. People searching a page for professional reasons will likely make a
judgment based on the electronic identity presented, which really is just an
image. Pariser does say that the technology will no doubt move toward rounding
that image out. He, however, cautions that that could present a much stranger
cyber landscape than the image-driven one. Maybe, then, it is up to us to be
aware that we must maintain the separation that Zuckerberg ultimately wants us
to disengage from. We must be fully aware in this cyber landscape that image and identity are indeed quite separate.
