1. 1
Who are you? The Effects of Social Network Sites on the Construct of Personal Identity:
The Meta-Patterns View
by
Zachary Shaw
submitted to the
Department of Philosophy
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts
March 28, 2016

2. 2

3. 3
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................... 4
Dedication....................................................................................................................................... 5
Abstract........................................................................................................................................... 6
Informational Background.............................................................................................................. 7
Social Network Sites..................................................................................................................... 12
Theories of Personal Identity........................................................................................................ 16
Effects of SNSs on Identity Construction from the Meta-Patterns View ..................................... 33
Turkle’s Long-Term Analysis of SNSs and Personal Identity ..................................................... 40
Conclusion: The Futility of Turkle’s Call for Arms and the Nature of Self-Identity................... 45
Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 50

4. 4
Acknowledgements
Thank you to everyone who has directly or indirectly affected my life. You are the
reason that I was able to complete this work. Thank you to my advisor Professor Harman for
guiding me through my independent work and telling me stories about the Princeton of old.
Thank you to all of my professors and teachers throughout my entire education for teaching me
with enthusiasm and patience. You have taught me your subjects, how to learn, and how to live.
Specifically, thank you to Mr. D. for your inspiration and continued support. Thank you to all of
my coaches throughout the years – in baseball, basketball, soccer, and primarily volleyball.
Without your mentorship and expertise I would not have been able to attend Princeton, and I
would not have been able to focus and manage my time effectively enough to complete this
work. Specifically, thank you to Coach Shweisky. I have learned more because of you than
anyone else in these four years. Thank you to all of the cadre members in the Army ROTC
program. What little common sense and discipline I have is due to your training and mentorship.
You are the reason why I have so much time to write this acknowledgments section and am
turning my thesis in on time. Thank you to my friends from high school, Princeton, and
anywhere else along the way. Only with your continuous support through the good and the bad
have I been able to get to this point in my life and accomplish this task. Finally and most
importantly, thank you to my family. You have taught me right and wrong and the gray area
inbetween and embedded in me the motivation and positive, growth mindset that I value most
about myself. And you have loved me unconditionally. Without this sense, mindset, and love, I
would not have been able to get close to the point of accomplishing this task.

5. 5
Dedication
This work is dedicated to my mom, who has taught me the value of face-to-face
communication and human relationships.

6. 6
Abstract
The development of [Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)] has
not only brought enormous benefits and opportunities but also greatly outpaced our
understanding of its conceptual nature and implications, while raising problems whose
complexity and global dimensions are rapidly expanding, evolving and becoming
increasingly serious. Our technological tree has been growing its far-reaching branches
much more widely, rapidly and chaotically than its conceptual, ethical and cultural roots.
The lack of balance is obvious and a matter of daily experience in the life of millions of
citizens dealing with information-related issues. The risk is that, like a tree with weak
roots, further and healthier growth at the top might be impaired by a fragile foundation at
the bottom. As a consequence, any advanced information society faces the pressing task
of equipping itself with a viable philosophy and ethics of information. It is high time we
start digging deeper, top-down, in order to expand and reinforce our conceptual
understanding of our information age, of its nature, its less visible implications and its
impact on human and environmental welfare, and thus give ourselves a chance to
anticipate difficulties, identify opportunities and resolve problems, conflicts and
dilemmas. (Floridi 5)
In this paper, I will show how the use of social network sites (SNSs) has affected and will
continue to affect our personal identities, and how only one modern theory of personal identity,
what I will call the meta-patterns view, can adequately account for these effects. From those
investigations, I will argue against the futility of Turkle’s normative argument against social
network site use and conclude that our personal identities are nothing more than attempts to

7. 7
recognize patterns of ever-changing information. In order to reach a point where we can
understand how our personal identities have changed, we need to understand the most prevalent
philosophical theories of personal identity, and the development of SNSs – what they are, how
we use them, and what role they play in our lives. But even before that, we must understand that
SNSs are a broader symptom of a larger technological phenomenon – mainly what Luciano
Floridi calls the “re-ontologizing of the nature of the infosphere” (Floridi 6) – in common
English, the onset of the information age. Only with this background can we effectively
understand how SNSs fit into our lives, and only with this understanding can we determine how
these SNSs have affected our concept of personal identity according to the meta-patterns view.
Informational Background
Since the dawn of history, we have had ways to record information.1
With each
compounding technological development, we have found ways to more concisely and more
quickly represent more and more of our histories. For much of human existence, information
systems served only as ways to remember our history – recording systems. From hieroglyphs to
Linear B, writing was a large step forward for mankind. As that writing moved from cave walls
to papyrus and paper, our records became mobile. Letters were written not to record our
histories, but to communicate with others. In these first two stages, information occurred, was
written down, was managed (by physically taking that information somewhere else) and then
was used. The next development for information systems was the ability to process information
with purely mechanical machines like Charles Babbage’s difference machine. With some given
information, we could now deduce other information (without human computation) and then use
that new information. Around the same time as Babbage’s invention came ways to communicate
1
By definition, pre-history is the time before we had records of human development.

8. 8
over space – the telegraph, Morse code, the telephone, and the radio. Now information would
occur, and could be processed, managed, and transported relatively efficiently to anywhere in the
world. Next, with the development of computers starting in 1940, we could process information
relatively efficiently – a single machine could perform many operations on our information by
processing the information in bits. Alan Turing developed the ability to constantly input
computable data and output processed information (Barker-Plummer). This further shortened the
gap between processing and managing, as the limiting factor became the throughput of a given
machine. Next came the increasing speed of computation with Moore’s Law – that computers
will double processing capacity2
every 18-24 months. With these developments, what Floridi
calls the “information life cycle” – information occurring, being processed and managed, and
then being used – was becoming shorter and shorter (Floridi 3).
More recently, the Internet has been developed. It synchronizes the processing and
managing capabilities of information systems into one easy-to-use system. As a result, there is
an unprecedented ability to create and use information. Instead of using a computer to make a
computation and then calling a friend to tell them about it, you can make that computation on
your computer and immediately post the results and the proof of the solution on a webpage
which everyone with a computer in the world can more or less permanently see, including your
friend. The abilities to process and manage information are becoming increasingly intertwined.
From the Internet, we can see that the time necessary for a person to receive information and
then act upon that information – the information life cycle – is continuing to shrink.
I will call this space of time between a person’s reception of an informational input from
the world and their reaction to that input with some informational output into the world the
Turing time gap. This gap is the time necessary for you to use the available technology to
2
Measured by the maximum number of transistors that can fit on a specified computer chip.

9. 9
complete the information life cycle. This gap is suitably described as the “Turing” time gap
because the Turing machine which Alan Turing created is the model still used to describe the
information life cycle as related to computation in computer science (Barker-Plummer). With
the technologies currently available, the Turing time gap has been reduced to negligible as
compared with the time it takes us as people to process information and act upon it. For
example, early in a relationship, possible partners may strategically wait to text their partner in
order to spur their significant other to ‘chase’ them (“Boy Talk”). In this case, the Turing time
gap of sending a picture message is negligible; however, because of the communication
medium’s social norms, information is inputted and outputted more slowly than if a phone call
were made to describe the object of the picture.
The Turing time gap is one measure of a larger phenomenon which Floridi calls
ontological friction: “the forces that oppose the flow of information… and hence (as a
coefficient) to the amount of work and effort required to generate, obtain, process and transmit
information in a given environment” (Floridi 7). Like the Turing time gap, ontological friction is
shrinking. All of the technological developments previously mentioned improve our ability to
process and manage our information, which, in turn, allows us to have more useful and, simply,
more information – thus lessening ontological friction.
As a result of these friction-reducing, time-saving, communication-enabling capabilities,
modern information communication technologies are very popular. They are becoming so
popular that our everyday world is becoming digitized. People are using their phones to text
their significant others at the lunch table instead of interacting face-to-face with their friends, or
they are texting their friends instead of interacting face-to-face with their significant other. They
are reading the news and posting articles to their blog instead of saying, “Hello,” on the subway.

10. 10
According to a 2011 study by the Pew Research Center, 13% of cell phone users, about 10.7% of
the total population, “has pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the
people around them,” and this number has likely risen since then with increasing rates of cell
phone usage (Smith, Street). This statistic demonstrates the popularity of modern ICTs and their
digitization of the world.
As the digital and analogue3
worlds become increasingly intertwined and the threshold
between them increasingly becomes blurred, it becomes difficult to understand certain concepts,
like personal identity, whose older theories did not take into account this digitization (Stokes
364, Floridi 8). In order to understand these concepts given recent technological developments,
it is necessary to view the world through a framework which is centered around information – a
universal theme of both the digital and analogue worlds. Thus, Floridi introduces the infosphere:
“the whole informational environment constituted by all informational entities (thus including
informational agents as well4
), their properties, interactions, processes and mutual relations”
(Floridi 6). The infosphere includes both information which is recorded online and offline – it
may be stored in our individual memories, on a terabyte hard drive, or written in hieroglyphics.
The infosphere is growing larger and larger,5
and that exponential growth is only possible
because of new information storage technologies6
which store more than previously thought
possible, and new information lifecycle technologies7
that are turning every interaction into data.
3
Analogue in the sense that includes all processable information which is not digital: “The digital is spilling over
into the analogue and merging with it.” (Floridi 8)
4
Important distinction because the infosphere treats interaction from informational agents the same as from ‘real’
agents.
5
Until the commodification of computers, there was only 12 exabytes of data in all of world history. In 2013, there
were 4,400 exabytes, and in 2020 it is predicted that there will by 44,000 exabytes of data (Gantz).
6
Example: Cheap hard drives which store ten or twenty times the amount of memory as was commercially possible
a couple of years ago.
7
Example: ‘Big data’ ad technology software which tracks the hundreds of data points available on Internet users,
and which sells access to that information in the form of online advertisements to the advertising marketplace.

11. 11
Given this nature, Floridi has deemed the increasing digitization of the world the “re-
ontologizing of the infosphere” (Floridi 12). According to Floridi, when this re-ontologization
has finished we will always be digitally connected, “it will be difficult to understand what life
was like in predigital times, and the very distinction between online and offline will become
blurred and disappear” (Floridi 8).
In this re-ontologized world, Floridi predicts that information will become our way of
“Being” (Floridi 9). We will no longer conceive of reality as a material world, but rather as an
informational world where objects and processes that we now classify as digital will play an
equal role to their physical, analogue counterparts. This change has great implications for
personal identity: “the criterion for existence is no longer being immutable or being potentially
subject to perception but being interactable” (Floridi 10). Differentiating ourselves only through
analogue means does not differentiate ourselves sufficiently for a solid sense of self if interacting
in the digital world is the social norm. Unless our way of differentiating ourselves is to reject the
digital norm and that aligns with our deeper sense of self, then we must somehow use the digital
forms available to us in order to create our personal identity.
For example, say we devote ourselves to a life of deep sea fishing. It would seem at first
glance that one could deep sea fish and learn all one needs to know about deep sea fishing with
minimal interaction in the digital world. However, if we assume the infosphere to be re-
ontologized, that is not the case. In this newly re-ontologized world of deep sea fishing, it is
socially accepted that one should post a picture and a video of every big fish one catches. If one
does not post pictures of at least three fish per day, one is socially stigmatized by one’s peers.
They say, “You are not a real fisherman! We have no proof that you caught anything good.” As
Then, companies looking to pinpoint their ads to specific users will buy those ads which are most likely to result in
revenue for their product.

12. 12
this social pressure grows, one is left with three options in the maintenance of their identity: (1)
Give in and begin to use one’s digital resources to develop their identity. (2) Look to find one’s
sense of identity elsewhere. (3) Or, incorporate one’s old-school style of not using social media
into one’s personal identity as a deep sea fisherman. In this re-ontologized world, even the deep
sea fisherman must somehow use (or not use) his or her SNS presence in order to maintain his or
her personal identity.
Broadly, our personal identity is a consequence of our personal narrative. The way we
view our selves, who we think we are, is a result of how we perceive the actions we have taken
throughout our lives. Those perceptions and the consequent personal narrative are told through
the given information systems of the current age. Thus, those perceptions and our personal
identities depend upon the mediums through which they are transmitted, i.e. information
communication technologies including SNSs.
Social Network Sites
Social network sites (SNSs) play a large role in the increasingly digitized infosphere.
They are an information and communication technology that inforgs,8
or actors in the infosphere,
commonly use to distinguish themselves as individuals. Within the infosphere, situations like
that of the deep-sea fisherman – where an individual must use their digital presence to maintain
their identity among their peers and create their personal narrative – are becoming more and
more prevalent.9
Thus, SNSs are instrumental in the development of inforgs’ personal identities.
SNSs consist of websites where users create “visible profiles that display an articulated list of
Friends who are also users of the system” (Boyd 212). SNSs are online platforms which enable
8
“Informationally embodied organisms… mutually connected and embedded in an informational environment, the
infosphere, which [they] share with both natural and artificial agents similar to us in many respects” (Floridi 11).
9
84% of American adults (age 18-64) are online and 74% of online American adults use social media (“Social
Networking”). Thus, 62% of American adults use SNSs.

13. 13
users to “construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of
other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections
and those made by others within the system” (Boyd 211). The most prevalently used SNSs are
currently Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram (“Top”). With SNSs,
individuals can “type oneself into being” (Boyd 212) through both narrative and multimedia
components (Stokes 365).
Because SNS use is a large part of the way we brand ourselves online to distinguish
ourselves from the virtual masses of inforgs in the infosphere, these social networks are used to
promote the individual, with profiles at the center of their interface. Because of this
individualized focus, “construction and maintenance of relations on SNSs is akin to ‘social
grooming’” (Boyd 224). You, as a user, want your profile to be popular because you want social
approval. Thus, you consciously construct an online representation of yourself – to manage your
networks’ impressions of you in a way that face-to-face communication does not allow for (Boyd
219). Every interaction one makes using SNSs can be a conscious, calculated choice whereas in
the real world one’s body language and real-time reactions cannot be controlled in such a
manner. In line with this calculated thinking, “online profiles are essentially performative, with
users trying to give a particular impression of themselves… all profiles are necessarily less than
authentic”10
(Stokes 365). SNS profiles often represent the aspirational identities that users
would like to embody in the real world, but have not yet been able to accomplish (Stokes 365).11
10
However, “if ‘authentic’ here simply means ‘free’ from attempts to give a particular impression of oneself then
it’s doubtful that any identity-presenting social behavior, online or offline, could count as authentic” (Stokes 365).
Authentic is a term that draws a line between what one’s identity really consists in and what is outside of that
identity but related to one’s personal identity. Depending upon the theory of personal identity assumed, this line is
drawn in different places.
11
Again, this is typical for both your virtual and non-virtual identities. You want to make a good impression on
others you interact with.

14. 14
There are several older stigmas associated with SNSs – both related to the performative
nature of profile creation. These stigmas are networking and misrepresentation. Both of these
stigmas are a result of SNSs’ histories. SNSs stemmed from MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon) and
MOOs (MUD, Objection-Oriented). MUDs and MOOs are early virtual environments in which,
as a user, you are a character. They were first created in the mid-70’s, and were most popular in
the late-80’s and throughout the 90’s. In these virtual environments, you can move and interact
with other characters – other users – by “typing directions or using the mouse to point in the
direction desired” (Sawyer). One’s interactions consist of a variety of human actions including
but not limited to “exploration, friendship, conversation, debate, and romance” (Sawyer). In
MOOs, more advanced forms of MUDs, users can also create objects (thus, ‘object-oriented’
MUDs) such as rooms, furniture, talking pets, and even talking furniture (Sawyer). The key
aspect of MUDs and MOOs as related to personal identity is that users play as characters
anonymously. Thus, users construct new selves through their characters in these virtual
dungeons. These selves may be of a different gender, sexual orientation, personality, or any
other attribute which is commonly thought to make up one’s personal identity.
Because SNSs have developed from the foundations of MUDs and MOOs, many assume
these SNSs to serve similar functions to their predecessors; thus, many call SNSs Social
Networking Sites not Social Network Sites. However, Social Network Sites are primarily not
used to develop new connections or do networking online with strangers (Boyd 211). Instead,
these sites are used to “maintain offline relationships or solidify offline connections” – to
communicate with people who are already a part of one’s social network (Boyd 221, 211). The
bi-directional confirmation requirement for friendship reinforces this norm of SNSs (Boyd 213).
It is not socially acceptable to accept a random friend request from someone not already in your

15. 15
social network: “the nature of SNSs contradicts popular concerns about the lonely adolescent
who connects online with strangers” (Peter 83). Furthermore, “SNS users use the search
capabilities of Facebook to ‘search’ for connections which they have already made in the real
world as opposed to ‘browsing’ for new strangers to connect with” (Boyd 221).
Understanding this stigma of networking vs. extending one’s network leads us to the
second stigma of misrepresentation. With the ability to “articulate and make visible” one’s
social networks and choose what others see on those networks, there is the ability to misrepresent
one’s real life online. Users can represent a different identity on SNSs than the one they live in
real life. However, because SNSs are used to extend one’s already-existent social network, there
is a strong incentive to not misrepresent oneself using SNSs: “SNSs mostly extend existing
offline relationships, making such fictional presentations considerably harder” (Stokes 364).
Posting a status which does not fit with one’s personal identity in the real world will
result in social stigmatization by one’s peers. For example, Dom Mazzetti, an upper-middle
class college student, is a brother in a fraternity which obeys a strict social code of drinking a lot
of beer and lifting a lot of weights. However, Dom has recently become obsessed with rapping
and rap music. He has begun to post rap songs and lyrics, both recorded by other artists and by
himself, to his Facebook account. Many of his peers have pulled away as friends because they
do not want to be associated with someone who does not fit their strict social mold. I personally
have seen a situation similar to this example occur on Princeton’s campus. Although Dom is not
misrepresenting himself through his actions on Facebook, this example shows why a SNS user
would not want to misrepresent oneself: One would be socially stigmatized. Thus, typically
“people don’t have digital alter egos” (Floridi 12).

16. 16
However, the argument for complete misrepresentation is valid in rare, but well-known,
stereotypical cases. For example, a sexual predator assumes a new identity to take advantage of
a young, innocent teenager. In extreme cases like these the perpetrator does assume a
completely different identity. However, in this case the profile is being used as a tool to
accomplish a different goal, not as a way to diversify its owner’s identity: The sexual predator
likely does not feel that their fake profile is a part of their true self. Yet, if misrepresentation is
limited only to these extreme cases, then why, today on Facebook for example, are 5.5% –
11.2% of all accounts fake (Protalinski)? The answer is that almost all of these fake accounts are
created by programs and bots in order to boost the number ‘likes,’ and thus the popularity of
one’s profile – not to create a fake personal identity to make an alter ego as in a MUD or a MOO
(Parsons).
Today’s social networks are primarily used as accurate representations of one’s offline
self. SNSs are so strongly associated with misrepresentation and networking because of their
history. Because MUDs and MOOs were not used to accurately portray one’s real world
personal identity, SNSs have been stigmatized (Sawyer). However, SNSs are not exact copies of
one’s personal identity as expressed in certain real life situations. One’s personal identity
changes depending on the medium of ICT used for its expression; in the case of SNSs, that
medium pushes one’s personal identity to be performative and aspirational.
Theories of Personal Identity
All of these technological changes, from writing to Turing machines to SNSs, have had at
least a marginal effect on our personal identities. If these technological changes had not existed,
we would have expressed ourselves through different mediums and have spent our time on

17. 17
different activities.12
In short, our lives would be different, and thus our individual concepts of
personal identity would likely be different. Given the assumption that SNSs have affected our
personal identities in some way, a coherent theory of personal identity must be able to account
for their effects. If not, for the purposes of this paper I will dismiss that theory of personal
identity as inadequate.
Despite these constant effects from ICTs – not to mention the many other socioeconomic,
political, and cultural forces throughout time – the concept of personal identity has continued to
exist. Thus, there must be some foundation of the concept that has remained. This foundation
tries to answer prototypically ‘deep’ questions like “Who am I?” Philosophers have sought to
discover what exactly is fundamental to a person’s identity, through reason. Like other
philosophical issues, there is no conclusive answer. However, to come to terms with what we
commonly believe to be a person’s identity, it is useful to understand the philosophical basis for
our common conceptions. At the philosophical level – where we have a more concrete grasping
of what makes up a person’s identity – it will be easier to determine how SNSs have affected that
conception. From that philosophical understanding of SNSs’ effects on personal identity, we can
return to see how those changes have influenced our everyday conceptions of personal identity.
In prior discussions of social networks and personal identity, one broad theory or another
of personal identity is assumed. However, it is useful to develop a more nuanced understanding
of the various theories of personal identity in order to make explicit the assumptions and
rationale for the given theory under which we are interpreting personal identity. In order to
understand more deeply how SNSs have affected our concept of personal identity, we will start
by exploring the different philosophical questions of personal identity.
12
Specifically, without these technological advances, we would be spending a lot more of our time accomplishing
different parts of the information life cycle – which are automated or shortened by these ICTs.

18. 18
Broadly, one’s personal identity consists in “those features which define her as a person
or make her the person she is” (Olson 2). This general statement gives way to several more
concrete questions. We must answer the fundamental nature question: What are we (Blatti)?
What are our fundamental properties (Olson 6)? We must know what characteristics are
necessary for a being to be counted as a person, and what are sufficient. Also, we must answer
the persistence question: What does it take for a person to continue existing, to persist, from one
time to another. How can I tell that I am the person I was yesterday and the person that I will be
tomorrow? Additionally there is the evidence question: “What evidence bears on the question of
whether the person here now is the one that was here yesterday” (Olson 4)? When we are
looking to answer the persistence question, what evidence can we and must we use in our
arguments?
There are many different theories that attempt to formulate a cohesive definition of
personal identity which answers these questions of fundamental nature, persistence, and
evidence. None of the theories are perfect, but some are currently more widely accepted than
others. An explanation of these various theories and their answers to the three questions of
personal identity will help to ground our understanding of how SNSs have affected personal
identity. After presenting each theory, I will endeavor to understand if SNSs could possibly have
affected our personal identities assuming that current theory.
Broadly, there are two types of theories of personal identity – reductionist and non-
reductionist. Reductionism, as expressed by Derek Parfit, states that “psychological and/or
physical continuity and connectedness are adequate to the facts of personal identity without any
notion of strict identity being posited” (Kapstein 292). We can define a person by using only
facts about their physical and mental states. On the other hand, non-reductionists believe the

19. 19
opposite claim: We cannot resolve the problems of personal identity without incorporating some
immutable essence into our definition. There either cannot be evidence or there is not sufficient
evidence available (to us as human beings) to identify people as being human in light of that
information. Thus, these theories incorporate some immutable essence of humanity into their
definition of personal identity.
We will start by examining the reductionist theories. First, let’s take the view called
animalism. This view claims that we, as people, are merely organisms of the animal kingdom:
“We are animals.” If we are of the species Homo sapiens, then we are human (Blatti). From this
fundamental claim, animalism answers the persistence problem by positing that the conditions
for persistence of a human person are identical to those of any other animal that exists (Blatti).
Because we are members of this species and we are animals, we do not have bodies that are
animals. Animalism opposes that we are anything but animals: “material bodies, souls, bundles
of mental states, thinking organisms, persons materially constituted by but nonidentical with
animals, nothing at all” (Blatti).
However, exactly what the conditions are for animals to exist is a matter of debate
between animalists. On one hand, organic animalists set the necessary conditions for animal
persistence to be that “one’s purely animal functions – metabolism, the capacity to breathe and
circulate one’s blood, and the like – continue” (Blatti). On the other, somatic animalists claim
that animals are “functionally organized physical objects whose membership in a particular
species is attributed to its origin and structure” (Blatti). Only if this structure is lost will an
animal, and thus a human, cease to exist. Although the concept of an animal is up for debate,
animalists agree that one’s personal identity is the same as the identity of any other animal.

20. 20
Could we, as animals, be affected by SNSs? I do not believe that a change in our
information life cycle could cause us to leave the animal kingdom. Take the following thought
experiment to understand why. A specific species of inchworm has created a new technology,
Inch Worm SNS (IWSNS), which matches all capabilities of human SNSs for inch worms.
Because of IWSNS, are inch worms fundamentally changed as animals to the extent that we no
longer call them animals? Do their autonomic functions change? Does the structure of an
inchworm as a functionally organized physical object change? Perhaps, these autonomic
functions and structure will be affected in several thousand years as inchworms evolve to
maximize their resources given their IWSNS-expanded constraints of survivability. However, it
is unlikely that within several millennia we would go so far as to describe inchworms as
something other than animals. Certainly the animalism of an inchworm will not be changed in a
couple decades. Given that modern SNSs have only existed for that short time, our personal
identities have not been affected by SNSs – from the perspective of animalists. Thus, the
animalist theory of personal identity is inadequate in explaining the effects of SNSs on our
personal identities.
A different view, the functional brains view, posits that we are physical parts of
organisms, specifically functioning brains. This view attempts to resolve two common
arguments regarding personal identity – the too-many-subjects problem and the not-enough-
bodies problem (Campbell 5, 11). The too-many-subjects problem is an argument animalists use
to defend their view that one’s identity and one’s self are one and the same with an organism.
For, if I were not my organism – whether that be my physical organism or the structure of my
organism – then I must be two separate entities – my self and my body. Because “it is absurd to

21. 21
suppose that there are really two subjects of each individual thought or experience occurring in
your head,” animalists claim that we must be the same as our organism (Campbell 5).13
On the other hand, the not-enough-bodies problem is an argument against animalists.
The problem is the inability to explain the medical case of dicephalus. In a dicephalus, like the
case of Abigail and Brittany Hensel, twins are fused together at some point below the neck
(Extraordinary). They live separate lives with separate minds, and there are two distinct people.
However, there is one physical organism. It is clearly not the case that one of the people
coincides with the organism while the other does not because each person controls their
respective side of the physical body. In the case of dicephalus, animalists are forced to either
bite the bullet and reject that there are two separate humans or create an exception case to their
theory – perhaps proposing a dicephalus as a different kind of human being. Both the too-many-
subjects problem and the not-enough-bodies problem present serious doubts as to the validity of
certain theories of personal identity.
In response to these two problems, the functional brains view “den[ies] that we are
spatially coincident with organisms” (Campbell 8). Instead, “a person is identical to those
functional areas of her brain that are necessary and jointly sufficient for her capacity for
consciousness… we are nonderivative subjects of consciousness” (Campbell 9). Specifically,
we assume that ‘functional’ parts of our brain are essential for the generation of consciousness.
Thus, the too-many-subjects problem is avoided because we coincide with the functional parts of
our physical brains14
– thus, we do not have the dilemma of the self and physical body as
13
However, as Campbell points out, this argument can be turned against animalists after a person’s death: We do not
survive death, but our organism and its matter do not change when someone dies. But if we are our organism and its
matter remains the same during death, does the organism live on?
14
Some may dispute the viability of this claim because it equates our personal identity with a mass of matter that
weighs, on average, 3 lbs, or about 2% of our total body weight. From this point of view, it seems far-fetched to
limit the essence of a being so complex to only 2% of that body.

22. 22
separate entities. Furthermore, the not-enough-bodies problem is avoided because, in the case of
dicephalus, there are two physical brains to coincide with two separate personal identities.
So, have the functional parts of our brain been affected by SNSs? To know the exact
answer to this question, we must be able to identify which areas of the brain are responsible for
our consciousness and which areas of the brain are affected by SNSs if any. To start, let’s
explore the research on the functional areas of the brain – the areas responsible for
consciousness. Before 2014, there had been no conclusive studies connecting any specific area
of the brain to consciousness (Thomson). Then, in 2014, one study found a link between the
claustrum and consciousness (Thomson). In that study, one subject’s claustrum was stimulated
with electricity; while stimulated, the subject was unconscious. Once the stimulation was
stopped, the subject immediately regained consciousness (Thomson). Additionally, further
research regarding the claustrum has been done which supports this scientific evidence (Stiefel).
However, besides this one experiment, there has been no
additional evidence linking the claustrum or any other
functional area of the brain to consciousness.
On the other hand, let’s take a look at the effects
of SNSs on specific areas of the brain. Research has
shown that SNSs “can lower your self-esteem and alter
your appetite” (“5 Weird”). When someone sends you a
message, likes one of your posts, or comments on one of
your status updates, using a SNS will activate the same
areas of the brain as when using heroin or cocaine – the
reward centers of the brain (Bautista). As we use SNSs
Source:
Thomson

23. 23
more and more, we become conditioned to seek praise and approval through their mechanisms.
Additionally, food porn, pictures or videos of appetizing food shared on social media,
“provokes a real emotional and physical hunger response that can be tough to control”
(O’Rourke). Because of a phenomenon called “supernormal stimuli,” looking at food porn
magnifies our desire for foods which we are already preprogrammed to love (O’Rourke). Part of
the brain’s reward center is activated, the hunger hormone ghreline is released, and the brain’s
area responsible for self-control fails to activate as it would in a situation where someone is
looking at real food (O’Rourke).
Both of these effects of SNSs may not equate to a visible effect on the brain after one
session of SNS use. However, because 62% of American adults are SNS users (“Social
Networking”),15
and on average spend 1.7 hours per day using SNSs (“Social Media”), there is
likely a systemic effect on the brain’s reward center. As we are constantly conditioned to exhibit
these responses because of our SNS use, the brain slowly changes. This change likely manifests
itself physically in some of the functional parts of the brain. However, the only area which has
been shown to directly alter consciousness is the claustrum. Besides this sole study, very little is
known about the claustrum – specifically regarding connections between it and the reward
centers of the brain. Thus, there is not significant scientific evidence to show that SNSs affect
our personal identity from the functional brains view. In the future we may find other links
between certain functional areas of the brain and consciousness, and these links may prove that
personal identity is affected by SNSs – according to the functional brains view. However, with
our current scientific research, the functional brains view cannot adequately explain the effects of
SNSs on our personal identities and is therefore inadequate for our investigations.
15
84% of American adults (age 18-64) are online and 74% of online American adults use social media (“Social
Networking”). Thus, 62% of American adults use SNSs. Also, the statistic for adolescents (age 12-17) is much
higher – 95% of teens are online, and 81% use SNSs. Thus, 77% of teens use SNSs (“Teens”).

24. 24
A different view posits that there cannot be such a thing as personal identity:
“If I wrote a book ‘The world as I found it’, I should also have therein to report on my
body and say which members obey my will and which do not, etc. This then would be a
method of isolating the subject or rather of showing that in an important sense there is no
subject: that is to say, of it alone in this book mention could not be made” (Wittgenstein).
Because any subject is made up of its members – we define something by its parts – there is no
holistic identity of a subject. Because any description of people must be formulated using a
collection of the parts of what ‘makes’ a person, there is no unique personal identity. Because
this view denies the existence of personal identity, there is no concept for SNSs to affect. Thus,
this view is unchanged by the advent of SNSs and inadequate for the investigations of this paper.
Another view, called the constitutional view and proposed by Lynne Rudder Baker,
argues that we, as people, are “material things ‘constituted by’ organisms: a person is made of
the same matter as a certain animal, but they are different things because what it takes for them
to persist is different” (Olson 6). This view claims that we are constituted by our physical
bodies, but we are not identical to them – unlike organic animalists. To understand the
distinction between constitution and identity, take the following example: A bronze statue is
constituted by bronze, but there is something more about the statue than its bronzeness that
makes it a statue, and not just a piece of bronze (Baker 592). In both the case of a bronze statue
and the case of a person it is difficult to put a finger on exactly what makes the piece of bronze a
statue16
or what makes the human body a person.
In the case of a person, proponents of this constitutional view posit that one is a “person
in virtue of having a narrowly-defined capacity for a first-person perspective, and is human in
16
In the case of the statue, perhaps it is the artist’s intent that the piece of bronze be known as a statue, combined
with the statue’s audience’s awareness of that artist’s intent.

25. 25
virtue of being constituted by a human body (or human animal)” (Baker 592). This view
attempts to toe the line between accepting our animalistic natures and recognizing that we are
ontologically different beings from the rest of the animal kingdom. People are human by virtue
of their human bodies, but they are people because they have first-person perspectives: the
ability and desire to ask, “What am I?” (Baker 592).
As to whether the constitutional view of personal identity could be affected by SNSs, the
answer follows that of the animalist theories. Just as it is unlikely that our autonomic physical
functions or our structural integrity as animals will be changed by our ability to further cut the
Turing time gap and reduce ontological friction, it is unlikely that our first-person perspectives as
people will be significantly affected by SNSs. Even if we were to measure the effects of SNSs
over several millennia, SNSs will likely not significantly affect personal identity assuming the
constitution view. Thus, this view is inadequate for the purposes of this paper.
The last major reductionist view is what I will call the meta-patterns view. Analytic
philosopher David Lewis argued for a version of this view: We, as people, are “best regarded as
suitably related aggregates of person-stages” (Lewis 1). Just as a volleyball match can be
divided into multiple sets, people can be divided into different person-stages (Olson 6). No two
person-stages are the same. Thus, the persistence question of personal identity arises. If we are
constantly changing psychologically, physiologically, and mentally, what, that is within the
physiological, psychological, or mental realm, can maintain our identity as the same persons over
different person-stages?
In order to answer this question, we must understand the intrinsically changing nature of
persons – drawing upon Buddhist philosophy which also supports a version of the meta-patterns
view. In Buddhism, this view expresses personal identity as the “anatman, a person who

26. 26
passes,” who is constantly unfolding (Flanagan 95). An anatman is known by a proper name –
as I go by the name ‘Zach’ and my friend goes by the name ‘Devin’ – but he or she is physically
and mentally changing at every moment. The anatman is the opposite of the atman, or the view
of personal identity as a “strict identity and self-same soul” (Flanagan 97).
This dichotomy seems backwards from the reductionist and non-reductionist point of
view. The most basic theory of personal identity is the irreducible, soul-proponing, atman
theory, whereas in Western philosophy the most basic theory is the reductionist theory, and all
non-reductionist theories are exactly that – non-reductionist. The anatman, or non-atman, theory
seems to presuppose an immutable soul. Some who misinterpret Buddhist philosophy see this as
a contradiction because, if the Buddhist view is known as a negation of a certain view, it would
make sense if that original view were widely accepted. True to form, the atman theory is widely
accepted.
We need concepts in order to understand the world around us, so many of us blindly
assume those concepts to be true – like many of those who assume atman theory. Buddhism
does not deny that there are persons – concepts like those signified by the names ‘Zach’ and
‘Devin’ that we use by convention to describe certain physical, physiological, and mental
patterns. However, it does deny that these persons ultimately refer to anything “really real”
(Flanagan 95): “it is a brilliant work of art, a product of the intellect, which says, ‘Let’s give all
this a name. Let’s call it ‘I’’” (Trungpa 6). In our everyday lives, we need to be able to
characterize concepts which are not simple and absolute in order to live meaningful lives. Thus,
we create concepts which are comprised of collections of patterns of states and events. Two of
these concepts are the immutable soul and real people. These concepts themselves make an

27. 27
impact on our decisions and therefore the events of the world; nevertheless, these concepts do
not actually refer to anything more than recurring patterns of states and events.
We know what the anatman identity is not, but what is it? How can a patterning of events
make up something as complex as personal identity? In order to understand this problem, take
the following Buddhist, metaphorical explanation:
You cannot step into the same river twice. Both you and the river will have changed
between t1 and t2, whatever the interval. Does this mean there is no river and no you?
Of course not. I have stepped into the Eno River numerous times. The water in the Eno,
the cells on the surface of my skin, my age, and my state of mind were different each and
every time I stepped into the river, which was also different in numerous hard-to-notice
ways. But it is [the person] who has stepped into the river each time. (Flanagan 96)
The world and the people in it are constantly unfolding and changing. Thus, there is no
immutable, rigid essence to personal identity. On the reductionist hand, the consistent patterning
of certain events and states allows us to recognize patterns of patterns. These meta-patterns
make up our individual concepts of personal identity.17
Specifically, our conscious awareness is
one of the recurring meta-patterns. The anatman theory posits that our personal identities consist
in18
the meta-patterned ability to think intelligently, reason, reflect, and “consider itself as itself,
the same thinking thing, in different times and places” (Flanagan 96). Consequently, personal
identity “links together a series of mental [and physical] processes in one connected and
conscious experience” (Kapstein 294).
17
Taken a step further, the general concept of personal identity that we use to encompass all individuals’ personal
identities is a meta-meta-pattern because it is the pattern of individuals’ meta-patterned personal identities abstracted
into a concept for the purposes of our understanding.
18
This is where the anatman theory draws the line between what is included in someone’s personal identity and
what is merely a pattern of states or events related to one’s personal identity.

28. 28
Returning to Lewis’s view, personal identity is “the relation between temporally extended
continuant persons with stages at different times” (Lewis 1). As mentioned earlier, this view’s
rationale begins by answering a version of the persistence question. How can we, as persons,
persist over time if we are constantly changing time-slices of persons? What causes us to persist
between each time-sliced experience? In the meta-patterns view, the connectedness and
continuity of individual patterns resolves this issue. Individual, present, time-sliced patterns
have “direct relations of similarity and causal dependence between… each of [their] successors”
(Lewis 2). This connectedness between patterns allow for a cohesive experience over time. In
addition to this connectedness, meta-patterns between individual time-sliced patterns seem to
develop: “The existence of [these] step-by-step paths from here to there, with extremely strong
local connectedness from each step to the next” gives us one continuous experience from which
we can determine recurring causes and effects as meta-patterns (Lewis 2). Through these
patterns of the relation between our different selves throughout time, we, or at least the concept
of our personal identities as individuals, can survive throughout time and resolve the persistence
problem.
In Patrick Stokes’s article “Ghosts in the Machine: Do the Dead Live on in Facebook?”
he make a distinction between selves and persons which clarifies the persistence question even
further. In this view, selves are the individual, present-time states of our bodies – physical,
physiological, and psychological. They are the “the present locus of experience,” the water in
the Eno River at time t1 (Stokes 376). Similarly, the self-identity is the “the identity that
guarantees the continuation of one’s immediately available arena of presence over time” (Stokes
377). Also, this identity is fundamentally the most important to us as individuals because
without it, we would no longer exist. On the other hand, persons are diachronically extended

29. 29
patterns of selves. The person is the collection of meta-patterns that one comes to call “Zach” or
“Devin.” Extending this definition to what I will call person-identity19
to avoid confusion,
person-identity is “the identity over time of the public person who happens now to be at the
centre of one’s arena of presence” (Stokes 377). At any given time, one’s time-sliced self
includes a formulation of one’s narrative person-identity. Applying these new concepts to the
river metaphor of personal identity explored earlier, our person is the diachronic collection of
meta-patterned states and events that we come to call a river, and our self is the time-sliced
physical material – mostly water – that the river consists in at any given moment.20
Stokes comes to realize this distinction between persons and selves by pondering a
common rebuttal of most theories of personal identity – one’s personal identity after death. Even
after an individual’s physical death, some part of his or her identity lives on. Why do we care so
much about the treatment of human corpses? Why are we so respectful of the social media
profiles of the dead?
Not making the effort to remember the dead dishonours not the memory of the dead
person, but the dead person themselves, for the dead are not reducible to our memories of
them… For us if not for the dead themselves, their moral identity extends beyond the
boundaries of their biological lives. That we struggle to ground that sense metaphysically
does nothing to disenchant our sense of the dead persisting in this way. (Stokes 368-369)
Using the distinction between self-identity and person-identity, we can understand this
phenomenon. Our present-tense, time-sliced selves die when we physically die. We no longer
constantly have thoughts in our head. We no longer are physically living or physiologically
19
Stokes simply calls it personal identity.
20
For the remainder of this paper, I will use the terms self, person, self-identity, and person-identity as explained in
this paragraph.

30. 30
developing. Thus, there is no self-identity. However, our person-identity lives on in the lives of
others through their individual, meta-patterned concepts of my diachronic person.
To better understand how SNSs would affect the meta-patterns view of personal identity,
it would be helpful to have a concept which coheres meta-patterning with Floridi’s view of
individuals as inforgs in the re-ontologized infosphere. Floridi’s concept of Shannon
information fills this gap perfectly. One’s patterning of Shannon information is the “complex
organization or form of a person” which “persist[s] through changes in matter-energy” (Floridi
25). Only if that pattern of Shannon information is maintained will personal identity be
maintained. The metaphor which Floridi uses to describe our personal identities is very similar
to the Buddhist metaphor for anatman identity: “We are but whirlpools in a river of ever flowing
water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns [of Shannon information] that perpetuate
themselves.” (Floridi 25). In this way, personal identity is not tied to any specific physical part
of the body like the brain. Instead, the constant form of Shannon information in our ever-
changing bodies of matter-energy answers the questions of continuity and connectedness through
the same reasoning as employed by Lewis. Additionally, patterning and meta-patterning of
Shannon-information can be applied to Stokes’s distinction of the self-identity and the person-
identity. In the infosphere, self-identity is the time-sliced patterning of Shannon information
which makes up one’s self concept, and person-identity is the diachronic collection of meta-
patterned Shannon information which makes up one’s self concept from connected and
continuous patterns of self-identity.
In short, according to the meta-pattern view of personal identity, our person-identities can
be affected by SNSs. To go further, they must be affected. Our person-identities are the ever-
changing collection of meta-patterns created as a result of the different patterns exhibited by our

31. 31
time-sliced self. At any given time, our time-sliced self includes our current meta-patterned
concept of our person. Although this person extends temporally, it also is constantly changing.
These time-slices of our person are influenced by the mediums through which our selves are
expressed. SNSs are one of those mediums; thus, our personal identities have been affected by
SNSs. But to what extent? The answer to this question, unlike most of the other theories, can be
better understood with further philosophical reflection. Because this theory does not identify our
personal identity with our physical body or parts of it, or any concrete concept of our person for
that matter, this view cannot be proven or disproven through scientific study. Thus, after the
non-reductionist theories of personal identity have been explored, we will endeavor to
understand how SNSs have affected our meta-patterned personal identities.
These reductionist views all rely on the assumption that a person is a conglomerate whole
of physical or psychological parts. However, another approach, the non-reductionist view,
rejects these claims that a person can exist as a combination solely of physical or psychological
parts. The non-reductionist view posits that all other competing views fail to account for some
specific case of the continuity of personal identity. Thus, there must be some “further fact which
does not consist in physical and/or psychological continuity” that makes us, as people, stable
over time (Kapstein 291). There are competing non-reductionist views as to what, in addition to
this further fact, one’s personal identity consists in. Some believe that one’s personal identity is
only this further fact like Thomas Reid and Joseph Butler (Shoemaker). They posit that an
‘immutable soul’ alone could account for the continuity of a person over time: “Each person is
an individual who has an unchanging essence that makes him or her who they are” (Flanagan
97). Conversely, others believe the dualist view, which proposes that we are “compound things
made up of an immaterial soul and a material body” (Olson 6). We are us in virtue of our

32. 32
material body and some immaterial soul which cannot be associated with any physical or
psychological aspect of our being, but which is ontologically part of us.
In order to understand the rationale for non-reductionist views, let’s look at the following
problems of personal identity, and how their lack of resolution leads non-reductionists,
specifically dualists, to conclude that personal identity must be a further fact. For example, take
the case of a brain hemisphere transplant:
“It might be possible one day to remove a whole hemisphere, without killing the person.
There are no logical difficulties in supposing that we could transplant one of [the
person’s] hemispheres into one skull from which a brain had been removed, and the other
hemisphere into another such skull.” (Swinburne 14-15)
If we allow this thought experiment,21
then the one person would exist as two people. However,
non-reductionists assume it to be impossible for one person to be two. Consequently, sameness
of body and psychology cannot constitute personal identity. There must be something more
which makes a person a person. Additionally, take the case of amnesia in which people continue
to exist despite the loss of all memories. Because these amnesiacs are still themselves,22
people
cannot be only their memories and psychological states. Thus, personal identity does not have
psychological or physical continuity. But there must be something which is constant for
continuity to occur: “For some kind of thing to continue to exist is for the stuff out of which it is
made to continue to exist, and for it to maintain the form characteristic of that kind” (Swinburne
27). Thus, dualists conclude that there must be an immaterial soul which complements a
person’s psychological states and provides the continuity of a person’s identity over time (Olson
21
Comparing the prior functional brains view, this dualist argument assumes that there are not certain necessary
areas of the brain for consciousness (or at least that if there are certain necessary areas of the brain, they can be split
in two and remain functional). Otherwise, it would not be possible to entertain the thought experiment of two
consciousness-producing brains – both halves of an original brain.
22
Those in favor of a view of personal identity purely as mental states will argue against this claim.

33. 33
6). These non-reductionist views go against the previous theories which posit that personal
identity is some combination of physical characteristics.
Based on our previous conclusions, we can understand the possible effects of SNSs on a
non-reductionist personal identity. For those who believe that our personal identity is only an
immutable soul, the question of SNSs’ effects is pointless. Because, by definition, we have no
way of measuring what this non-physical, non-psychological, immutable soul is, there is no way
to conclude that it has been affected or not by SNSs. Thus, this view is inadequate for
proponents of the dualist view – again – because there is no way to measure SNSs’ effects on the
immutable soul aspect of personal identity. However, it may be possible for us to draw
conclusions about the effects of SNSs on the other half of the view depending on what non-
reductionist theory it is comprised of. The conclusions of the dualist view will match those of
the respective reductionist theory which makes up the reductionist half of that dualist theory.
Thus, our explorations into the reductionist views will also show how the dualist view will be
affected by SNSs.
In summary, only the meta-patterns view of personal identity adequately accounts for
SNSs’ effects on our personal identities. Thus, in the examination of those effects we will
assume the meta-patterns view of personal identity.
Effects of SNSs on Identity Construction from the Meta-Patterns View
Given this analysis of personal identity theories and our knowledge of SNSs as platforms
used to differentiate oneself in the infosphere, let’s explore how SNSs affect our meta-patterned
person-identities. First, let us define identity construction as “the development of stable and
fulfilling friendships and the ability to disclose private information in appropriate ways and
settings” (Peter 83). Our relationships give us the support we need to create a concrete concept

34. 34
of person-identity in the present moment. In turn, these meta-patterns of selves enable us to
interact with those around us in socially acceptable ways which continue to develop our person-
identity narratives. SNSs affect these meta-patterns in several ways.
The extension view proposes that SNSs extend our person-identities. SNSs are part of
the virtual space which is used to extend one’s person-identity in ways which one cannot do in
real life. By its nature, this extension is made within the structural limitations of SNSs’
infrastructures. Through the medium of SNSs and within this structure, there are many ways to
extend one’s self. You can change your profile picture on Facebook, like a post on Twitter, write
a LinkedIn post and share it with a select number of your connections, post pictures of you and
your cat on Instagram, etc. All of these activities affect the Shannon information of your current
time-sliced self – based on your responses to these actions and your responses to others’
interactions.23
Let’s return to Floridi’s metaphor of the whirlpool as personal identity in order to
understand this theory of SNSs as extensions to your personal identity. In this metaphor, your
person-identity is the collection of meta-patterns of Shannon information that we call a
whirlpool. Imagine a world where the whirlpool is exactly the same, but there is no Shannon
information which represents color. There is only black and white and shades of gray. This
world mirrors your person-identity before SNSs. With SNSs, you are a more complex person.
There is more Shannon information which must be incorporated into your identity – more
interactions. This world reflects the world of the whirlpool in color. Before color in the
23
On a SNS, because the information is open and interacted with by so many users, the information from one
interaction expands exponentially. For example, User C may ‘like’ an interaction between User A and User B. This
interaction between User A and User B now is an informational input for User C. Thus, as a consequence of the
closing Turing time gap, Floridi states that, “the digital deals effortlessly and seamlessly with the digital” (Floridi 7).
Interactions flow instantaneously to and from digital interactions.

35. 35
whirlpool world and before SNSs in our world, nothing was missing. However, now that SNSs
do exist and they are a part of your meta-patterned person, your person-identity is more complex.
Furthermore, SNSs extend the self by “enable[ing] communication with other people
from [one’s] extended social network” which, without SNSs, one would not be able to
communicate with (Peter 83). SNSs’ “profiles extend our practical, psychological and even
corporeal identity in ways that give them considerable phenomenal presence in the lives of
spatially distant people” (Stokes 363). For example, I met a French girl on a plane to San
Francisco. She did not have an American phone and was leaving the country in three days. I
could not stay in touch with her if I were not able to look her up on Facebook and send her a
Friend Request. With Facebook, I can interact with her, albeit within Facebook’s structural
limitations, and I can facilitate other types of interaction with her – perhaps meeting in real life,
interacting on other SNSs, or talking on the phone. Without Facebook, the Shannon information
making up her self presently would not be as connected or affected by the Shannon information
making up my self. In this way, SNSs enable connections which would otherwise not have been
possible, thus extending our person-identities.
The extension view, like the stereotype of fake SNS profiles, is an effect of their
evolution from MUDs and MOOs. Because in MUDs and MOOs one anonymously creates a
new identity, the real life (abbreviated RL by MUD and MOO users) identity and the likely
multiple identities in virtual MUDs and MOOs transform one’s identity into “the sum of one’s
distributed presence” across these multiple platforms (Tavani 352). This parallelism between
online and offline identities allows users who are less socially adept in RL to develop stronger
identities in these virtual worlds. MUD and MOO users would develop online connections they

36. 36
otherwise would not have made; thus, they would construct their Shannon information-patterned
person-identities in new ways.
In modern-day SNSs, users do not create new, drastically different identities as in MUDs
or MOOs. However, that does not mean that their identities are not distributed across the
different platforms of SNSs and RL. SNS users do have a distributed person-identity presence
across these different mediums. As Stokes argued, SNSs play a role in our person-identity
diachronic narratives, even after our physical deaths. Just as we have different meta-patterns of
our personal identity in different contexts, we have different meta-patterns of our personal
identity on individual SNSs. For example, in RL our meta-patterns of our self when around our
college friends are likely very different from those meta-patterns of our self when we are
interacting with our boss at work. These meta-patterns may be used to describe two different
people.
This idea of different meta-patterns of person-identity being expressed in different
contexts is best conveyed in Harry Potter when Barty Crouch Sr. exclaims to his son “You are no
son of mine!” (Harry). The meta-patterned, diachronic person which Barty Sr. knew does not
match the meta-patterned, diachronic person who is currently being exhibited by the Shannon
information-patterned, current self of Barty Jr. Just as Barty Jr. was exhibiting different patterns
of Shannon information than his father knew, and you are a different person with your college
buddies than while talking to your boss, you are also a different person on all different SNSs.
The specific meta-patterns expressed in all these different contexts and on all these different
SNSs24
through your time-sliced self make up a part of the diachronic narrative of your
24
You might say that you are closer to your LinkedIn person when talking with your boss, and closer to your
Facebook person when talking with your college buddies. This shows that SNSs are equally viable platforms to
different RL situations to express one’s person.

37. 37
collective meta-patterned person. Thus, you may be different on these different occasions
without being literally a different person.
This phenomenon can be extended to the metaphor of the person as a whirlpool.
Depending on the weather conditions of the area, the ice melt of recent years, the erosion of
sediment in the river, etc. the whirlpool in the river will consist of a slightly different aligning (or
meta-patterning) of Shannon information during different years and different seasons. This
change is not merely the different particles of time-sliced water flowing through the whirlpool
and river at any given instant (these flowing particles represent the changing Shannon
information of the self). Rather, it is the changing meta-patterns of that water, the currents of the
whirlpool, which depend upon the different environmental conditions of the area. These
changing meta-patterns represent the different person-identities of an individual in different
contexts.
Conversely, SNSs limit one’s personal identity because of increased overlap between
different contexts of one’s person – over space. Because SNSs significantly lower the
ontological friction of your personal Shannon information, it is more difficult to keep clear
boundaries between person-identity narratives of different contexts. For example, what happens
if you are Facebook Friends with your college buddies and your boss? SNSs do offer tools to
manage what sub-networks can see a given post, but for most users the struggle to learn those
tools and remember which posts should be displayed to which sub-networks is not worth the
hassle (Valor 18). Even with these tools there is the risk that you may accidentally include your
boss on the list of people who can see your posts directed to your college buddies. Instead, most
users opt to “come to terms with the collision – allowing each network member to get a glimpse
of who [you are] to others (and in other situations), while at the same time asking [your]self

38. 38
whether these expanded presentations project a person that is more multidimensional and
interesting, or one that is manifestly insincere” (Vallor 18). In this way, SNS users’ personal
identities are limited to what aligns, to a certain extent, with the social norms of all of that users’
different overlapping networks and their contexts.
Similarly, SNS users must align their person-identities over time. Just as over one’s
different networks one must act according to an all-encompassing social standard because of
SNSs lessening of ontological friction (if one opts to accept the collision of multiple person-
identities), one’s interactions in the past must adhere to the current social standards because of
another effect of SNSs on Shannon information – permanence. Because after posting something
to one’s profile it is almost permanently25
available to one’s network, SNS users must align their
past interactions and Shannon information to their current meta-patterned person. There are SNS
tools like Facebook’s “‘Timeline’ feature (which displays my entire online personal history for
all my friends to see) [that] can prompt me to ‘edit’ my past;” however, “it can also prompt me to
face up to and assimilate into my self-conception thoughts and actions that might otherwise be
conveniently forgotten” (Vallor 18). Before SNSs we could reconcile our different, past meta-
patterned versions of our persons by changing our perspectives on those memories. We could
remember the aspects of our past persons in a way which more easily aligned them with our
current person. Now we cannot as effectively bend those memories to align with our current
meta-patterned person. Because of the permanent nature25
of most SNSs, a post cannot be
forgotten or as easily morphed to fit one’s current diachronic person narrative. Thus, one’s
current, complex person-identity must “take into account the multiple pasts and presents that the
25
There are ways to edit and delete SNS posts. However, other users of these networks can easily save or
screenshot any post before it is deleted or edited. Consequently, the post becomes permanent. Also, for more
sophisticated hackers, there are ways to access time-archived profiles which would include original or deleted posts
(Cooper, Wolpe).

39. 39
user has occupied/is occupying” (Stokes 365). Consequently, one must more coherently align
one’s current person-identity to one’s past person-identities. In this way, one’s person-identity is
constricted by SNSs.
Also, SNSs are likely to make one’s personal identity increasingly polarized because of
“the unique temptations of ‘narrowcast’ social networking communities” (Vallor 16). SNSs
allow us to connect and relate with those who otherwise would not be in our network. This is the
effect of decreased ontological friction. However, we are most likely to only connect with those
people who we already share traits, interests, or groups with because we can relate through these
connections. So what we see on SNSs – for example the Timeline on Facebook – is already
geared towards people with which we share something.
“[Combined with] the absence of the full range of personal identifiers evident through
face-to-face contact, SNS[s] may also promote the deindividuation of personal identity by
exaggerating and reinforcing the significance of singular shared traits that lead us to see
ourselves and our SNS contacts more as representatives of a group than as unique
persons.” (Vallor 16)
The architecture of SNSs, specifically the algorithms of features like the Facebook ‘Timeline,’ is
geared to show us what we want to see for financial reasons. If we like what we see, we will
visit the site more often which earns the SNS company more advertising revenue. Consequently,
on SNSs there is “a tendency to constrict our identities to a closed set of communal norms that
perpetuate increased polarization, prejudice and insularity” (Vallor 16). Despite there being less
ontological friction of Shannon information because of SNSs, due to the structure of SNSs the
information which uses these almost frictionless pathways is limited by how it is tailored to our
interests. However, there will always be a flow of information on SNSs which does not perfectly

40. 40
fit our individual social norms and perfectly align with our current person-identity, and this flow
“has the potential to offer at least some measure of protection against the extreme insularity and
fragmentation of discourse” perpetuated by SNSs (Vallor 24). Still, as SNSs’ algorithms become
more refined, and the Shannon information which individuals are exposed to through SNSs on a
daily basis becomes more polarized, our Shannon information meta-patterned persons will
become increasingly polarized.
SNSs act to extend, constrain, and narrow our personal identities in a variety of ways.
With new technological developments like SNSs, it seems that we are becoming more and more
complex beings. Our person-identity narratives now must incorporate more Shannon
information than ever before into their histories.
Turkle’s Long-Term Analysis of SNSs and Personal Identity
Although we may initially use SNSs in order to extend our identities and connect with
those with whom we would not be able to otherwise, SNSs have other long-term effects. One
investigation of personal identity, popularized by Sherry Turkle in several books – most recently
Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age – posits that the abstraction from
analogue interactions to digital interactions in SNSs is destroying our ability to relate to one
another, and thus negatively impacting the construction of our personal identities. This view
originates from the Heideggerian view of technology as “a monolithic force with a distinctive
vector of influence, one that tends to constrain or impoverish the human experience of reality in
specific ways” (Vallor 5). All technology which abstracts from our natural26
experience of the
world creates a hyperreality (Vallor 6). From this view, SNSs serve to “subvert or displace
organic social realities by allowing people to ‘offer one another stylized versions of
26
In the sense of meaning without any ICT.

41. 41
themselves… rather than allowing the fullness and complexity of their real27
identities to be
engaged’” (Vallor 6).
As noted before, SNSs are designed to be user-friendly, and give us complete control of
our interactions. This control limits the risk of interactions on SNSs (Vallor 8). Because of
these characteristics of SNSs, they, like other hyperrealities, have a “tendency to leave us
‘resentful and defeated’ when we are forced to return” to RL (Vallor 6). We start using SNSs as
ways to extend our person-identity narratives. Then, when combined with recent developments
in mobile technology which allow us to always be connected, we end up using SNSs in place of
other ‘more natural’ mediums of relating because of the short-term benefits of SNSs: “We begin
by arguing that the replacements are ‘better than nothing’ but end up considering them ‘better
than anything’ – cleaner, less risky, less demanding” (Franzen). Thus, we are “quick to settle for
the feeling of being cared for and, similarly, to prefer the sense of community that social media
delivers, because it comes without the hazards and commitments of a real-world community”
(Franzen).
Turkle argues that SNSs are negatively affecting our identity by creating a vicious cycle
of deficient conversations and lack of alone time which influences our meta-patterned person-
identities. Instead of spending time with those around us physically, we are spending time using
SNSs. There is a “growing cultural tolerance for being ‘alone together’” (Vallor 21). Even
when we are together with people physically, we are still alone because we are not paying
enough attention to them to relate on a level deeper than we do on SNSs: “With people, things go
best if you pay close attention and know how to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Real
people demand responses to what they are feeling” (Turkle 11). However, when we are
constantly looking at SNSs on our smartphones while interacting with others, we cannot meet
27
This theory presupposes that we have a concrete, real personal identity.

42. 42
those demands. With this growing cultural tolerance for a lack of empathy, conversation is
becoming a lost art.
According to this view, “conversation is on the path toward the experience of intimacy,
community, and communion” (Turkle 11). With fewer intimate conversations, we will have less
intimate relationships and little motivation to explore the issues that make up our person-
identities. Connecting with others on a deep level is much easier when face-to-face with that
person because RL forces us to work through the difficult parts of interactions. In a RL
conversation, there is awkwardness and there are “Ah-ha!” moments where we finally
understand the other person’s perspective on an issue. On a SNS, the predetermined structure of
the interaction avoids as much awkwardness as possible, and in that structure it sacrifices its
users’ opportunities to develop and grow. Instead of needing to wrestle with deep issues to form
an identity, SNS users do not need to think about these issues. Instead, they are differentiating
themselves on SNSs through competition and the level of adherence to social norms. These
norms are based upon SNSs’ structures which put ease of use and control first, and they may not
align with our current and aspiring person-identities. Thus, to a certain extent person-identity
has transformed from a pursuit to find out who one really is and to develop meaningful
relationships into a competition to perform “a better version of [oneself] – one that will play well
to [one’s] followers” (Turkle 23).
These norms create competition for popularity. The competitive nature of personal
identity construction through SNSs is a result of the relational nature of SNSs:
Identity construction takes place along a continuum of implicit and explicit identity
claims… Implicit claims are mainly visible and portray the self as a social actor, notably
in its connection with peers, for example by posting party pictures (‘relational self’)…

43. 43
[while] explicit identity claims are largely narrative descriptions and portray the self as an
individual actor (‘individual self’), for example when adolescents describe on SNSs who
they are. (Peter 86)
On SNSs, the relational self dominates profiles and thus identity construction (Peter 87):
“Whether they wish their identities to be formed and used in this manner or not, the online selves
of SNS users are constituted by the categories established by SNS developers, and ranked and
evaluated according to the currency which primarily drives the narrow ‘moral economy’ of SNS
communities: popularity” (Vallor 17). Thus, SNS profiles often serve as place-markers within a
network as opposed to accurate depictions of one’s personal identity (Peter 87).
As a consequence of this relational dominance of SNSs’ identity construction, “while
identity construction entails to some extent the presentation of idealized parts of the self, the
positive feedback of others endows this self-presentation with social legitimacy” (Peter 87). In
other words, one’s personal narrative needs to be popular for one to have a strong sense of
personal identity. Because of our constant comparisons, there is a salary cap on the amount of
self-esteem in the total population. Only those with the most popular profiles are likely to feel
good about themselves and their personal identities.28
This competition leads SNS users to a
cycle of more adamantly performing to the norms of SNSs in order to become more popular
instead of trying to explore their selves and develop a person-identity which adheres to their true
aspirational person-identities. Our profiles are already aligned to the performance- and
28
You are likely to see the most popular posts and statuses of your friends because SNSs use algorithms to
determine what Twitter tweets, Instagram posts, etc. you see first on each respective SNS, and these algorithms are
partially based upon the popularity of the posts of those you follow, your friends, or your connections. For example,
you may go on Facebook every day for twenty minutes and post one picture per day. If people like what you post,
perhaps one day per week one of your posts has a lot of likes and comments and makes you feel good about
yourself. For the other six days, you are comparing the popularity of your own posts to largely the most popular
posts of all of your 200 friends, and because six of every seven days your posts are not nearly as popular as the most
popular posts of your friends, you feel dissatisfied (“Is Facebook”). Thus, “frequent use of social media leads to
feelings of depression and social anxiety” (Turkle 26).

44. 44
competition-centered structure of SNSs, so there is no need to create our own coherent and
aligned personal identity. We only need to compete within the predetermined structure of SNS
profiles for the most well-aligned, popular profile. Thus, in SNS users’ competition to develop
the most popular profile, they fail to develop coherent, concrete person-identity narratives.29
The other half of the Turkle’s vicious cycle is related to solitude. When we are truly
alone, we work to interpret what has happened to us, specifically those perspective-widening
conversations, in a way which fits our personal narrative. In self-reflection, we align our meta-
patterned person-identities to the recent self-identity patterns we have experienced. However,
with SNSs we rarely spend time alone because if we are not on SNSs, then we feel the short-term
pain of loneliness. Thus, we choose to go on SNSs during time we might otherwise have spent
alone. Additionally, even when we are alone, much of that time is unproductive and spent
thinking about using SNSs or fearing missing out.30
However, when we are alone without access
to SNSs or other distractions, we develop a stronger person-identity in the long run. With SNSs,
we always can entertain ourselves in the short-term and “get a neurochemical high from
connecting,” but in the long-term we become lonelier because our meta-patterned person-
identities are learning to resonate online instead of learning to develop meaningful relationships
(Turkle 19).
We improve at what we practice. When we spend time using SNSs, we improve our
ability to become popular on a SNS and communicate through the medium of a given SNS.
When we spend time in conversation, we improve our ability to relate to others face-to-face.
And when we spend time alone, we improve our ability to be content alone and to incorporate
29
“Torn between our desire to express an authentic self and the pressure to show our best selves online, it is not
surprising that frequent use of social media leads to feelings of depression and social anxiety” (Turkle 26).
30
Fear of missing out or FOMO is “FoMO is experienced as a clearly fearful attitude towards the possibility of
failing to exhaust available opportunities and missing the expected joy associated with succeeding in doing so”
(Herman).

45. 45
our experiences into a cohesive narrative – “engaging in more productive solitude” (Turkle 13).
As a result of our spending our time on SNSs instead of conversing face-to-face or reflecting in
solitude, empathy markers in college students have declined at an unprecedented rate in the last
10 years (Turkle 311).
SNSs and their increasing use are a topic of heated debate as related to personal identity
formation. They enable connections which otherwise would not have been made and allow us to
be more connected with those physically away from us – thus extending our personal identities.
However, they also affect the meta-patterns of Shannon information which make up our person-
identities. As a result, our person-identities are more polarized, less solidified, less empathic, and
with lower self-esteem on average. Are technological progress and the closing of the Turing
time gap worth these sacrifices?
Conclusion: The Futility of Turkle’s Call for Arms and the Nature of Self-Identity
When paper letters and the telephone were invented, people were probably making
arguments similar to Turkle’s against these technologies. Both of these ICTs lessened
ontological friction and the Turing time gap, but, like SNSs, they likely “compromised the
important function of passive modes of embodied self-presentation beyond our conscious control
[of their respective time periods], such as body language, facial expression, and spontaneous
displays of emotion”31
(Vallor 18). Despite this concession of what Turkle calls the
‘authenticity’ of the interaction, we have managed to maintain our personal identities. Yet,
Turkle cries for us to put down our phones, return to face-to-face conversation, solitude, and
reflection, and asks SNS companies to design technology that “encourages us to disengage”
(Turkle 43).
31
Vallor describes the effects of SNSs using this quote

46. 46
However, I believe that this call is a lost cause because of technological determinism and
market forces. Technological determinism is the view of “technology as an independent driver
of social and cultural change, shaping human institutions, practices and values in a manner
largely beyond our control” (Vallor 7). Ontological friction will continue to decrease, and, if you
agree with Turkle, empathy and self-esteem will continue to decrease in the population also.
Floridi, for example, has already concluded that the infosphere will become completely re-
ontologized in his prediction that the distinction between online and offline will disappear
(Floridi 8). Turkle suggests that SNS companies could work to get us off of SNSs and back to
having conversations and reflecting in solitude. However, this action would go in direct
opposition to these company’s business models. They make money from people using their
websites and using them frequently, so they are not going to urge people to stop using SNSs or
develop infrastructures that limit SNS use. Additionally, users play fundamentally passive
roles… [and] have little or no direct bargaining power,” so the common man is not going to be
able to motivate SNS companies to change (Vallor 27). Thus, because of technological
determinism and the business models of SNSs, the future of personal identity is going to be a
combination of resonating online through SNSs and interacting in RL.
Turkle posits that the relative distance from our person-identity determines the level of
‘authenticity’ of one’s personal identity expressed in a given interaction. Conversely, I believe
that when we use ICTs our interactions do not become less ‘authentic.’ Regardless of the meta-
patterning of Shannon information, we are interacting with another human being. Drawing an
arbitrary line to determine what is ‘authentic’ and what is not ‘authentic’ will primarily serve to
exclude those who are less apt at RL interaction. Take the example of Jill the blind woman. In
Jill’s physical community, she is stigmatized and discriminated against because of her blindness.

47. 47
In this community, she feels uncomfortable expressing herself. However, she works as a suicide
hotline responder. In this role, she feels that she can express herself and be appreciated without
judgment. Are her interactions for her job on the phone more or less ‘authentic’ than those in her
physical community with face-to-face interaction? “Physical reality does not always enable or
facilitate connection nor does it do so equally for all persons” (Vallor 8).
We arbitrarily choose to define ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ interactions as those which best
enable and fit our expression of our personal identity. For some this may mean face-to-face
interactions. For others this may mean using a SNS. Many assume that face-to-face interactions
are authentic because they are the way of the past, and SNSs have been statistically associated
with depression, anxiety, and a lack of empathy. However, stigmatizing the use of SNSs as
unreal lowers the self-esteem of those whose personal identities are best expressed through that
medium. Despite this critique of Turkle, SNSs are and will continue taking over personal
interaction and identity construction because of technological determinism and market forces. In
the future, the problems which Turkle highlights will plague human interaction and personal
identity, and it is useful to identify them. However, it is not worth alienating those people who
cannot best express themselves face-to-face, in order to futilely fight against technological
determinism.
In this analysis of SNSs’ effects on personal identity, thus far we have focused on how
SNSs affect the person-identity of individuals. We have avoided concretely positing how SNSs
affect the self-identity of individuals – how they affect our present-time patterns of Shannon
information. The reason that we have avoided this topic is because it is a very difficult one. The
complex nature of the Shannon information that we label our self is only becoming more
complex. In a world where one’s personal identity is clearly connected to one’s physical body, it

48. 48
is much easier to distinguish what is and is not a part of oneself. Metaphorically, it is much
easier to determine what currents (person-identity) are currently a part of the whirlpool than what
water particles (self-identity) are currently a part of the whirlpool. Let’s assume for example that
our selves encompass all Shannon information which physically, physiologically, and mentally is
connected to a person at the current time-slice. Although this definition in itself would be
controversial, it is possible to conceptualize. But when there is Shannon information connected
to a person online on a SNS profile too, it is even harder to know where to draw the line. When
our personal identity begins being affected by how we resonate on SNSs in addition to our ‘more
natural’ mediums of communication, it is difficult to rationalize drawing the line in the same
place. This increased confusion only goes to show the nature of our personal identities.
We arbitrarily circle patterns of Shannon information in order to form our self-identities.
We need these patterns to create persons and person-identities in order to comprehend the world
and live coherent lives, but these patterns are only man-made impositions on the world. At its
heart, personal identity is merely a construct we have created in order to understand the world,
and it will change fluidly as the Shannon information it consists in changes and thus our
patterned interpretations of that Shannon information, our self-identities, change. It has been
proposed that our “smeared-out selves are constituted by a shifting web of embodied and
informational relations… and may lose coherence as the relations that constitute us are
increasingly multiplied and scattered among a vast and expanding web of networked channels”
(Vallor 19). However, this statement assumes that we have ‘real’ selves to begin with. Contrary
to that, SNSs show that selves are only a construct we create to coherently live our lives – just
patterns of Shannon information. We try to string together all of the different parts, but with the

49. 49
complexity brought by SNSs, it is becoming increasingly evident that we are just creating a
concept from identifiable patterns in order to understand our lives.

50. 50
Works Cited
“5 Weird Negative Effects of Social Media on Your Brain.” Reader’s Digest. N.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2016.
“6 New Facts about Facebook.” Pew Research Center. 3 Feb. 2014. Web. 9 Mar. 2016.
Ardren, Traci. Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands: Gender, Age, Memory, and
Place. University of Texas Press, 2015. Web.
Baker, Lynne Rudder. “Précis of Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View*.”Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 64.3 (2002): 592–598. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.
Barker-Plummer, David. “Turing Machines.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward
N. Zalta. Spring 2016. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.
Bautista, Camille. “How Social Media Affects Us: Your Brain on Facebook, Twitter, and More.”
Bustle. 16 Apr. 2014. Web. 9 Mar. 2016.
Blatti, Stephan. “Animalism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta.
Summer 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.
“Boy Talk: An Inside Look at the Male Texting Game.” Her Campus. 13 Feb. 2013. Web. 10 Mar.
2016.
Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship."
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13.1 (2007): 210-30. Web.
Campbell, Tim, and Jeff McMahan. “Animalism and the Varieties of Conjoined Twinning.”
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 31.4 (2010): 285–301. Print.
Cooper, Sarah. “Snapchat Hacking a Reminder of Internet Permanence.” Catholic Archdiocese of
Oklahoma City. N.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.
Extraordinary People: The Twins Who Share a Body. One North. 19 Feb. 2007. Five. Film.

51. 51
Fernback, Jan. “The Individual within the Collective: Virtual Ideology and the Realization of
Collective Principles.” Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety. London:
SAGE Publications Ltd, 2002. 36–54. Web. 20 Dec. 2015.
Flanagan, Owen J. "Selfless Persons." The Bodhisattva's Brain: Buddhism Naturalized. Cambridge:
MIT Press, Bradford, 2011. 93-114. Print.
Floridi, Luciano. The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.
Franzen, Jonathan. “Sherry Turkle’s ‘Reclaiming Conversation.’” The New York Times, 28 Sept.
2015. Web. 20 Dec. 2015.
Gantz, John John, and David Reinsel. "The Digital Universe in 2020: Big Data, Bigger Digital
Shadows, and Biggest Growth in the Far East." IDC iView. EMC Corporation. Dec. 2012. Web.
Good, Catherine, Carol S. Dweck, and Joshua Aronson. “Social Identity, Stereotype Threat, and Self-
Theories.” Contesting Stereotypes and Creating Identities. Ed. Andrew J. Fuligni. Russell Sage
Foundation, 2007. 115–135. Web. 17 Dec. 2015. Social Categories, Social Identities, and
Educational Participation.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Dir. Mike Newell. Prod. David Heyman. By Steven Kloves.
Perf. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane, Ralph Fiennes, Michael
Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Alan Rickman, and Maggie Smith. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2005.
Herman, Dan. "The Fear of Missing Out." FOMO The Fear of Missing Out. Dan Herman, 2011. Web.
27 Mar. 2016.
“Is Facebook Damaging Your Brain and Health?” Learning Fundamentals. n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2016.

52. 52
Kapstein, Matthew. “Collins, Parfit, and the Problem of Personal Identity in Two Philosophical
Traditions: A Review of ‘Selfless Persons’ and ‘Reasons and Persons.’” Ed. Steven Collins and
Derek Parfit. Philosophy East and West 36.3 (1986): 289–298. Web. 20 Dec. 2015.
Lewis, David. Philosophical Papers Volume I. Oxford University Press, 1983. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.
Olson, Eric T. “Personal Identity.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta.
Fall 2015. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.
O’Rourke, Teresa. “The Food Porn Problem.” Women’s Health. 6 Aug. 2012. Web. 9 Mar. 2016.
Parsons, James. “Facebook’s War Continues Against Fake Profiles and Bots.” The Huffington Post.
22 Mar. 2015. Web. 8 Mar. 2016.
Peter, Jochen, Patti M. Valkenburg, and Cédric Fluckiger. "Adolescents and Social Network Sites:
Identity, Friendships and Privacy." Kids Online Opportunities and Risks for Children (2009): 83-
94. Web.
Protalinski, Emil. “Facebook Estimates Between 5.5% and 11.2% of Accounts Are Fake.” The Next
Web. 3 Feb. 2014. Web. 8 Mar. 2016.
Sawyer, Doug. "MUDs & MOOs." MUDs & MOOs. Southern Illinios University Edwardsville. n.d.
Web. 14 Feb. 2016.
Shoemaker, David. “Personal Identity and Ethics.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed.
Edward N. Zalta. Winter 2015. N.p., 2015. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.
Smith, Aaron. “Americans and Their Cell Phones.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech.
15 Aug. 2011. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.
“Social Media: Daily Usage in Selected Countries 2015 | Statistic.” Statista. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Mar.
2016.