Technologically mediated identity

personal computers, online aliases, and Japanese robots

Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou

pp. 207-242

in: Nicholas Monk, Mia Lindgren, Sarah McDonald, Sarah Pasfield-Neofitou (eds), Reconstructing identity, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

Pasfield-Neofitou argues that relationships between technology and identity are multifaceted and complex. Computers have long been used as a metaphor for explaining the human mind and aspects of our identities; likewise, the mind has been utilized as a metaphor to explain the processes of computers. Such interplay is evident throughout our language: we speak of computers having memory, describe ourselves as pinging one another, multitasking, and having fried our brains after a long study session. While we have utilized the human body as a template for understanding the world around us throughout history, the machine has become a metaphor for just about anything in modern society, with ourselves simultaneously the most familiar, and the most unknowable, feature of our world.