Online Identity Crisis Identity Issues in Online Communities
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Online Identity Crisis Identity Issues in Online Communities Selene Arfini1 · Lorenzo Botta Parandera1 · Camilla Gazzaniga1 · Nicolò Maggioni1 · Alessandro Tacchino1 Received: 19 June 2020 / Accepted: 26 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract How have online communities affected the ways their users construct, view, and define their identity? In this paper, we will approach this issue by considering two philosophical sets of problems related to personal identity: the “Characterization Question” and the “Self-Other Relations Question.” Since these queries have traditionally brought out different problems around the concept of identity, here we aim at rethinking them in the framework of online communities. To do so, we will adopt an externalist and cognitive point of view on online communities, describing them as virtual cognitive niches. We will evaluate and agree with the Attachment Theory of Identity, arguing that there is continuity between offline and online identity and that usually the latter contributes to the alteration of the former. Finally, we will discuss ways users can enact self-reflection on online frameworks, considering the impact of the Filter Bubble and the condition of Bad Faith. Keywords Identity · Online Communities · Virtual Cognitive Niches · Filter Bubble · Double Mutual Anticipation · Bad Faith · Affordance
1 Introduction: Our Cognitive Framework and Goals How have online communities affected the ways their users construct, view, and define their identity? This question arises from two intuitive assumptions amply accepted by the philosophical community: personal identity is contextually framed, and Online Communities are new contexts to which people’s identities are adjusting.1 Both the question and the assumptions relate to a range of possible philosophical 1 Here we should point out that, a decade ago, a group of scholars interested in Internet Studies held in Denmark a workshop entitled “Who am I Online?” Ess (2012) collected the papers presented in that workshop in a Special Issue of Philosophy & Technology. The issue covered various topics, from virtual worlds and narrative identity to embodied cognition and robotic experience to negotiating the self and disembodied communications. Notwithstanding the importance of that issue, its central theme was vast,
* Selene Arfini [email protected] 1
Department of Humanities, Philosophy Section, University of Pavia, Piazza Botta, 6, 27100 Pavia, Italy
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issues, wildly interconnected in the literature on identity. To make some example, we can refer to the problem of “persistence through time” (Gallois 2005) “personal identity across possible worlds” (Sider 1999), the issue of “a criterion for identity” (Lowe 1989), and the problem related to “personhood” (Dennett 1988). Every one of these issues would benefit from a philosophical update to include how Online Communities affect the construction and maintenance of personal identity. To start the inquiry and limiting our analysis to a
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