Aside on Children and Youths, on Identity Construction in the Digital World

Abstract

Symbiotic processes have a special impact on children and young people. Born in a world of technological tools paraphernalia linked to the Internet and the most widespread media, they cannot even conceive of a life where they would not be permanently connected to the network. Traditional notions associated with privacy are thus questioned without much awareness. The impacts of fragmented information, of the way social networks summon reactivity and immediate emotional response, of the permanent presence of the other mediated by a smartphone, a tablet or a computer, are not yet thought out and conceived in all their consequences. However, the phenomena of scattered and diffuse identity and the emergence of behaviours intolerant to frustration are becoming increasingly evident. In a world where in each of those present in the network there constitute within themselves like one alter ego (or more), youths have difficulty in structuring a solid and differentiating identity, caving before the multiple pressures they are subjected to. Perhaps in the near future the notion of building a differentiated identity will not have the same pertinence it has today.