What is an identity? How has it changed in the past 300 years, within Australia, and within the whole world?
The word "identity" means multiple things, to multiple people.


An identity is(Usually) a way to distinguish something, or somebody, and in context of using the word 'identity' in a sentence, it is used as a verb, or adjective.



I could say that my name is Joshua, I am a male, I live in Melbourne, inside Australia, and I am 'Australian'.
But to my concept of "identity", that is incorrect; as not only do I not define myself as 'Australian', but the terms that I've used are extremely vague.


To clarify what I mean by "I don't consider myself an Australian", I mean:
Although I was born in Australia, and my parents were born in Australia, the diversities of culture that Australia offers, I have not grown up as, an "Australian".
Therefore I consider myself as a what I call, a 'Combination of European, and American'.



Now, back to terms of identity.

Identity is an extremely vague term, as I said. It is much easier(and more accurate) if we use a combination of words.

We can sort it through a few words;
Somebodies 'title'(or label),
Somebodies 'location',
Somebodies 'name',
Somebodies 'appearance',
And in special cases, epithet(Alexander the "Great", for example).

I consider a 'title', a unique word to describe what you consider somebodies identity.  - For example, "My Father", the 'title' would be 'Father'.


Defining what a 'name'(In the context of a human being) is, is extremely complicated, which I could fill 10 pages of text with. But I'll try to sum it down to the basics.
What we(Australia), and as far as I know, the whole world uses, is Christian names but there are many more ways of defining a 'name' for somebody, and is usually belief-oriented.

A 'name' in the context of a name of an object is a simple string that defines something. Although there are multiple languages, everything is 'straight forward'.


Defining a 'location' in the sense of identity could mean either current, future, or past locations that they have been, lived, or anything of the likes.

One of the most distinguishing aspect of an identity, is appearance.
You could be in a crowd, and say "Look at that person, over there!", even while pointing, it may not always be straight forward. As there may be to many people, or objects, to "choose from".
But saying something like, "Look at that person, over there! The guy wearing the blue hat, in the red shorts, and the white T-Shirt.", it would be much more clearer, and would identify the person.


And epithets, these are hardly ever used. They are kind of like titles, but in the sense of like, "President Obama", or "Prime Minister Julia Gillard".


In 1916, defining a mans' identity would be simply done so by a name, title, location, and his epithet(Class of war).

In 1970, defining somebody's identity would be simply somebodies title, location, name and appearance.

But in 2013(Current day), after the 'dot-com boom', personal, and public identity has progressed to much more.

With new technology, and with technology that is overtaking the 'normal person', identities change.


Somebody's 'appearance' may change because of what they have seen on the internet. Also their personalities.
Some 'people'(hardly), try to make themselves 'Cool' in today's society, normally by leaving their clothes at home, because of social pressure of the internet.(normally people who have no self-respect, or are deluded by today's society.)

With the addition of forums,email, and IM, people have been able to communicate on a more regular basis, which can distinguish somebody's identity, as you get to "Spend more time" with somebody.


To conclude;
Today's technology influences our depiction of our identities. Most likely for the worse.
Today's depiction of Identity is not the same as in the pre-2000 era.