Creating Your Cyber-Self

For my reflection on a news story or weblog, I'm going to discuss an article called "Creating Your Cyber-Self"

From BBC online, this article, published in November 2000 discusses the new technology of scanning oneself to create a virtual 3D image that can represent you online. I thought it was interesting because whilst it was written in 2000, several times in the article it discusses how this new technology will revolutionize the way we represent ourselves online. They claim that the technology, which will be ready in a year to eighteen months, will have us putting a 3D version of ourselves in different forums all over the internet and in the gaming world offline. Sadly, this didn't happen. Whilst the technology may have been developed, there has been no significant or obvious integration of this technology into the average persons daily internet use. Nowhere do I find myself seeing or experiencing an identical digital version of myself online.

I think this is interesting because of several things. Firstly, I think it reflects peoples desire to maintain a certain amount of anonymity online. People don't want others online to have a complete digitised image of themselves to talk to. Yes, we find ourselves more and more talking via webcams, on programs like Skype, but I think that that reflects our desire for human contact with each other, rather than our desire to have a version of ourselves posted up there on the internet for all to see.

I also think that people are saying here that whilst they like to have a sense of the person they're interacting with online, they realise that a virtual scan of someone is not that person, but rather just that, a virtual scan of them. It seems that it is integrally different to have a photo of oneself (a true and accurate snapshot of a moment in that persons history) online, rather than a 3d image. I think the image suggests a certain loss of humanity, rather than a gain in humanising technology, which is why I think it never took off.

I think this article is also pertinent in its dealings with personal information. Whilst we seem to all be happy to represent ourselves online via websites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace via text and graphic media, there seems to be a recognition of the fact that we would be able to manage the flow and use of information about ourselves online. If a digital image of ourselves, accurate from head to foot, was to be available to others on the internet, personally I would be scared people would start stealing my image. Its ironic, because we publish so many images of ourselves online all the time, but the concept of someone having that kind of data about me- the exact proportions and measurements of my own body- feels like too much to let loose on the internet. But maybe that's just my own irrational insecurities, because realistically if someone wanted to steal my identity there is surely more than enough information on me available already online.

On that lovely thought, I'll say farewell :)