Social psychologist Peter Weinreich summed identity up like this: "A person's identity is defined as the totality of one's self-construal, in which how one construes oneself in the present expresses the continuity between how one construes oneself as one was in the past and how one construes oneself as one aspires to be in the future" (Weinreich). Defined this way, identity is an incredibly complex thing. It focuses on the self and how one perceives the self, constructing the individual from their preferences, worldview, and experience of themselves. However, it doesn't account for external characteristics bestowed upon the individual that the person may or may not acknowledge, and it doesn't leave room to consider that individuals may be oblivious to traits that may actually be a part of their identity. 

 

So perhaps we should broaden the definition a bit. In the esteemed and distinguished opinion of Wikipedia, identity is defined as "the qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions that make a person (self-identity) or group (particular social category or social group)" (Wikipedia stole it from Paul James' 2015 article "Despite the Terrors of Typologies: The Importance of Understanding Categories of Difference and Identity," which can be found here.) The distinction between self identity and group identity is an important one, because writing is a process of exploring self-identity in relation to a larger group identity. 

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As an extremely personal act of self-expression, identity is integral to the writing process. Identity determines the many thought processes that play out in one's writing...

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• It determines how you see yourself, commonly referred to as self-identity

• It determines how you relate to and express yourself

• It determines how you see yourself in relation to others

• It determines how you see others 

• It determines how you think about others viewing you; ergo, it determines what and how you write

• It determines how you interpret said ideas and decide to present yourself. 

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With the dawn of the digital age, identity and writing have grown closer and closer together. We're no longer practicers of the religion of objectivity, though we'll still claim to believe in it. Modern American society values the individual and the individual experience. And while we still have problems with allowing othered voices to be heard, the platforms and opportunity for dialogue are growing. Self-identity contains the whole of our selves and experience, and writing is the means of communicating experience. 

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And in 2017, there are more opportunities than ever to write. The wide open terrain of digital spaces offers endless opportunity for relating to oneself and expressing oneself in places that the world can see. But it's also a wild, conflicting, and confused space. It's a jungle in here; enter at your own risk. Every person who enters the internet is subject to the whirlpool of swirling identities and the pressures to shape themselves in response to the environment. The pull is irresistible. So as people build the internet, the internet builds people. Offline self and online self are the same, nor do they operate in separate spheres. This study will focus on that very phenomenon: how the internet and people change each other, and what that means for the writing they create.