A quote that caught my attention, when reading Handyside and Ringrose’s paper, was “‘showing off’ is discussed disparagingly as a typically female Snapchat behaviour […] ‘constitutive process’ (van Doorn, 2010, p. 586) by which technology and gender mutually form each other is apparent” (p. 352). I am curious about this process — how does technology mediate the construction of gender? What about other categories of social life, such as sexuality, race, and class? How does social-media-based activism leverage (or not) this process of identity-making through technology? As I think through these questions, I am brought back to a TikTok compilation that I watched recently, it was something like “tiktoks that only gen z will relate to.” As the compilation’s name suggests, there are numerous ways in which Generation Z-ers’ identities were constructed through and by the digital world, as we are coming of age in a time of rapidly expanding connectivity. I wonder what this virtual identity-building process might entail for our relationships, personalities, and even social movements. Concomitantly, I wonder where people who lack access to technology fit in this new identity-making process. Would different levels of access to technology within and across groups in today’s society create/expand disparities within them?
One Reply to “Reflection 11/09/20”
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I’m certain that the disparities factor into identity formation. I didn’t grow up with the internet for example, partially because of my age, partially because of my cultural background, and I think that this is reflected in my attitudes toward identity formation, which I see as a much more “material” (as opposed to digital/virtual) process. But I think that for many, being connected is a factor of identity in a way that it isn’t for me. How do you feel about that for your own generation?