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October 13, 2003
faceted identity != multiple personas
Posted by danah boyd
At FooCamp, i realized that many people have been misreading my pleas for contextualization of identity presentation.
I have regularly argued that people facet their identity and present different aspects given the context. Although i've argued against the multiple personality approach that emerged in the 1980s' cyberculture research, my statements keep getting re-read as promoting multiple personas.
The easiest way to talk about how people facet their identity is by talking about dualisms. Unfortunately, this segmentation creates confusion. It also creates the assumption that people are always hiding one aspect of their identity from groups of people. Additionally, this approach seems to indicate that only a small fraction of the population reads context into their identity presentation.
In fact, we all read context into our presentation of self. The vocabulary choices you make are dependent on the audience you are speaking with. You speak to your child differently than you speak to your lover; you use different vocabulary when talking to someone with shared expertise than you do to someone whose doesn't know the terms common in your field. Depending on shared history, you provide a different level of background information. Depending on perceived shared interests, you magnify your favorite interests differently. We constantly alter what we are presenting depending on to whom and in what context. This is not about deception; this is about contextualization.
When i speak of faceting one's identity, i am not speaking of the ability to explicitly segment a manageable number of identity components; i'm talking about the ability to constantly adjust what is being presented, to whom, and in what context. Without this ability, people rely on the least common denominator. (This is why the majority of personal webpages out there read like a resume - the aspect of one's identity that one is most readily comfortable sharing with everyone.)
Comments (3)
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1. P6 on October 13, 2003 9:28 PM writes...
You're just talking about the FACT that no one talks to their mother the same way as their girlfriend, or their father the same wasy as their boyfriend or whatever.
Permalink to Comment2. adrian chan on October 13, 2003 9:46 PM writes...
danah,
Permalink to Commentat the risk of cutting myself on the edge of one of my own facets, the part that gets facenated by these discussions of the finer points of social software, I have to say that i think the interactions and communication involved in these things really affects "presentation of self." Facets included. What a person says in their guestbook entry, testimonial, invite, etc. is an invitation to respond. It's a request for a response. So it gives you options on what to say and how, but it structures your options.
So you may wish to present a professional self/identity, but quickly find that you're getting hit on right and left. What then? Because if you respond with a professional presentation of self, it'll be considered cold shouldering. Each message has created context, sometimes deliberately challenging your facet, or playfully testing it.
One of the really tricky areas in social software is that social systems and interaction systems are not the same system. Steering communication on the one hand, and designing a particular kind of social system on the other, might be like trying to govern a state with press handlers...
I think it can be done, but perhaps not by allowing members of a system to explicitly regulate "who they are."
I'm not sure. It's tricky. There's another reason that identity may not be the key (though it's a huge factor). In impersonal systems, and relations, which is what all of these are (perhaps including dating systems!), we're not *really* interested in other people. I mean, as real, individual people who's feelings would be hurt if we simply disappeared. We're not dependent on them; success of our actions doesn't require their full approval. And we don't pursue deep understanding with them. So there's a fine line between presentation of self as strategic vs sincere. We may exaggerate a facet, then have to pull it back when it turns out the connection's happening!
Goffman felt that in social encounters we are responsible for others' face. Whether this holds as a strong tie/constraint on mediated interaction or not, i think depends on the community (and whether relations are multiplex, or occur in RL also). This was one of the main reasons for context. Context would have to be binding for it to matter. Since nobody can see you blush online, it takes other constraints. I think the technology and its use deeply shapes these constraints, and whether we recognize them...
Must think more on this.
3. adrian chan on October 14, 2003 11:10 PM writes...
Jay:
Just read your complete post at our own icite. I think you're right about boundaries, but if you use systems instead of spaces, you get the same thing w/o having to use a metaphor. By using spaces, you have to say that we enter/leave different spaces, which means we're in bounded spaces, meaning they have contexts, and then we're right back where danah started us at--context vs identity.
I think by using systems instead of space, you can talk in terms of access and interaction.
Plus space ignores "time", which is that hidden dimension all these mediating systems have in common....
cheers
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