Digital identity

If in the 16th-century people did not have the idea of identity (Taylor, 1989), then today, the identity represents an indispensable individual based on the culture, social, customs, and politics to create that individual’s identity. The identity of an individual is not transparent or unproblematic. It is considered a “product” that is never complete, and then it needs to be processed and continue all the time. (Hall 1990: 222). Therefore, identity is “a project of the self” (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006, p. 18).

Identity is usually formed from the individual to take it on, and it is locked inside somewhere (Elias, 1994). Therefore, all individuals have their own specific identity as their characteristics depend on the role in society or in the groups they belong to. Therefore, we can say identity plays the primary role in human life on their participation and activities. People have multiple identities, and these identities interact with other identities from different people. That’s why the identity needs to be flexible and should be changed suitable, particularly in a globalization environment. For example, I have a personal identity that I cannot see and some aspects I cannot see, but I have changed my identity to a learning and working environment. In each setting, I show a different identity. It is the same as “language lives” of that environment (Bakhtin, 1984). For example, in a working environment with the manager of a beauty salon manager, my identities are dealing with customers, communicating with my colleagues, managing the salon, and performing my skills and abilities. As a student, my identities include an online environment, studying, and collaborating with my peers and teachers.

Furthermore, my goal is to complete my degree, so it impacts the transformation of identity’s concept by creating online information and activities, where I can show my identities to potential future employers through Facebook, Linkedln, known as “digital identity.” It shows people who I am and my qualification as I believe there will have a change in my identity in the future. There’s no denying that today’s era is the digital age. Internet users can explore their digital identity depending on the information you have provided, so they can say that identity is the foundation for all online activities. Thereby, it is clear that the traditional identity is gradually transformed into the online one. In other words, it’s hard to separate natural and digital life nowadays. Besides that, identity helps to secure and private by identifying the sensitive information when we log in to some accounts and enhance the individual work together.

In short, identity is something very personal to an individual. It is formed and transformed according to that individual’s location and time; especially in the digital age, the term “virtual identity” is no longer a stranger. It creates an individual with digital identities like a second self-such as participate, connect, interact and communicate as never before. It also invokes the impact of globalization on identity. So we can interact with people of different identities.