Hall of Infinite Doors

The concept of identity seems to be under fire from all directions by modern day technology. Individuals have always been faced with the challenge of trying to balance maintaining their individual identity and conforming to social norms in order to be accepted. Advancements in biotechnology and information technology have made this challenge harder by providing new avenues to conformity and escape from ones own identity.
The development of new psychopharmacological drugs has increased the pressure on individuals to compromise their own identity in order to conform to preexisting social norms. Elliott points out how in American culture, extroversion is cherished and individuals' introversion has become pathologized. Drugs have been developed to reverse shyness and have sold incredibly well. These drugs provide an alternative to accepting one's own identity, and their mere existence creates greater pressure to conform to societal norms. While the model for what traits an individual should have varies from culture to culture, the widespread sale of these drugs in developed nations, especially the United States, demonstrates their power to tip the scales away from individualistic identity and towards conformity.
The decoding of our genetic material through efforts such as the human genome project has created a number of profound threats to the very concept of identity. The idea that you can predetermine much about an individual based on the genetic material they are born with removes the concept of social mobility. The movie Gattaca takes this concept to an extreme level in which a sort of caste system based on genetics is created. If an individual knows their own genetic fate, they are not able to naturally foster their own identity but instead have thrust upon them a prefabricated one. Efforts to genetically engineer individuals only intensify this problem, with parents already beginning to screen their embryos to pick only the most genetically "fit" offspring. The advent of designer babies along with the possibility of human cloning in the not too distant futures raises profound concerns about the identity of these individuals. The threat is that an individual will not be able to develop their own identity because this identity is chosen by their parents and contains the inherent expectations of their design.
The growth of the internet represents has lead to many individuals willingly surrendering aspects of their identity. Communication over the internet is disembodied, only retaining content, but losing all physical cues both visual and auditory. As a result, individuals need not present themselves as they are in the real world on the internet. Instead, they are able to craft their identities as they choose. The issue is that this identity is superficial and insubstantial and ultimately alienates the individual from their real world identity.
The internet contains several different sources of this identity erosion. Social networking site such as facebook are incredibly popular, especially among youth. They involve building profiles to describe yourself, but the limited medium and prefabricated layout of these sites leads to individuals using superficial and idealized identities on these sites. Individuals create many "friendships" over these networks that require only the click of a mouse button but represent no real connection. An even greater departure from reality takes place in MMORPG's and MUD's, massive multiplayer games online in which individuals dispense with their own identity entirely in order to take on the persona of a fictional character. The level of escapism in these games reaches such extreme levels that many individuals become more invested in their fictitious life than their real one.
The erosion of personal identity is occurring through biotechnological before birth and continues throughout adult life through disembodied forms of communication through the internet.

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