Digital self

Who are we? Lots of researchers and poets have been working on the deconstruction and the enrichment of our mundane definition of idendity. They have notably shown that whether we are in-dividuals, it is essentially when we face police, law, psychology, and sometines medecine. Otherwise, we are a lot more, or a lot less, than a reasonning, biologicaly unified, being. Digital networked devices are great means to experience such a multitude. Nowadays, our coexistences are computer-supported ones, as Antonio Casilli nicely coined it.
For instance, whether, during a big scientific conference that looks like a huge mall, you find yourself listening to a very interesting speaker (it also works with a boring one), you can easily extend your knowledge about her. You’ve got her name and maybe that of her institution on the schedule. Type both on the page of a well-known online research engine and you quickly draw an augmented portrait. Her research domains, the title of her published papers, the classes she gives, people she usually works with. This journey completed, lift your head and look once again at the person who’s talking. Do you see? She’s not exactly the same.