- 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.