IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022 - 80

Commentary
nations, or ethnic groups), or to individual characteristics
(e.g., a patient person) [13]. Identity management
is, in practice, the management of links
between the different personas each individual
takes on throughout her life.
Identities may sometimes stand in conflict, and it
is both inner (psychological or cognitive) and outer
(social) context that determines which identity is
performed at a given time [14]. Thus, when a parent
is interacting with her kids, she acts in a different
manner than when talking to teachers or other
parents. Similarly, we might create and perform
an employee identity in front of our boss, which is
completely different from our " party animal " identity
used with close friends. Crucially, each performance
is assessed by partners of interaction, and the
feedback received is compared with the inner representation
of the particular identity (i.e., the identity
standards). Based on that reflected assessment, we
judge how well our performance fits the meanings
we attach to the identity. For example, the identities
of employee and party animal might have conflicting
meanings attached: as employees, we try to exude a
sense of responsibility, and while partying-we try
to seem totally carefree. It is difficult to be both at
once, in front of the same person. This explains why
we might feel uneasy if our superior learns about the
last party we took part in: we can no longer maintain
a " clean " employee identity. We do not have such
an issue with a stranger at said party, who has never
seen any of our other identities.
Whenever we perform an identity and the
reflected appraisal fits the identity standards, it elicits
positive emotions and strengthens the identity
standard. If the verification is negative-it causes
negative emotions and leads to attempts at rectifying
the nonfitting feedback [15]. First, identity performance
might be changed to better reflect the internal
standards. If that is not enough, the standards
might be changed, although this is a slower process.
In effect, identity standards are negotiated with partners
with whom the individual interacts and evolves
as the individual undergoes smaller and larger identity
transitions [16]. In time, some identities might
be dropped altogether-for example, when transitioning
from adolescence to adulthood. In fact, the
teenage years are a period of identity experimentation,
and identity standards may change profoundly
in this period [17]. Importantly, the individual holds
the keys to her identities: that is, she is the one who is
80
aware of the full set of her identities and may choose
to drop or create new ones or to change their standards.
The self is what links her different identities.
Or so it was for most of our time in this world.
These days, often unawares, the individual may
lose her unique position as the controller of identity
links. In the early days of the Internet, as Edward
Snowden reminisces [18], it was often a place for
identity experimentation: when a quick succession
of creating and dropping identities was not out of
the ordinary. The reason might have been to test
new versions of oneself or the need for expression
for those whose identities had to be suppressed in
physical interaction. But now such dynamic and
fluid processes of identity formation are nigh on
impossible. It is the tech companies that hold the
keys to the digital selves.
Coincidentally, what data collectors care about
is not only the bits of information they gather, even
less what the vast amounts of data on individuals
mean [19], but rather how they are linked. It is more
important to know that individual X likes book category
Y and watches movie category Z, than what X,
Y, or Z stand for. In this, machines that churn all that
data are in fact similar to our human selves for whom
identity links are crucial. User profiling by data
aggregators means, in practice, building a unique
identity representation for each individual. This is
similar to how we ourselves define our uniqueness,
not by stating separate facts that describe us, but by
combining them into a whole. There might be many
teachers, parents, citizens, and so on, but each of
us is a unique combination of such traits, roles, or
positions. Therefore, there is a strong conflict of
interests between individuals who have the need to
control the links between their identities, and data
collectors who strive to uncover those links and use
them for the prediction and manipulation of user
behavior. However, the resources available to pursue
those goals are different for these actors.
Even when individuals take full advantage of
privacy features available within digital services, it
might be impossible to take back control. As mentioned
earlier, the most readily available options
are those limiting visibility of one's online identity
performances-that is, of the shared or published
content-to specific others by changing content
visibility. This answers the psychological need to
perform different identities to different audiences,
even though this control can be diminished by the
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022
