Grammars of “Onlife” Identities: Educational Re-significations

Abstract

Identity has been widely understood in Western societies as a specular construction that operates simultaneously both from within and from outside oneself. However, this process is fiercely changing in a world in which almost every human action is mediated by information and communication technologies. This paper, from a theoretical perspective, aims to discover the main educational implications of this change. For that purpose, we first consider the traditional meaning and process of forming the self in Western culture. Afterwards, we identify and describe the mechanisms for the construction of the self in our current context, highlighting the fact that technologies, in themselves and regardless of the use we make of them, hide implications. Taking this into account, we show to what extent the current development of the self presents shades, conflicts and tangible risks from an educational perspective. We finally conclude that it is essential to promote an education on technology that goes beyond the use regulation in which, up to now, it has been solely focused on.