The Digital Self explores the phenomena of virtual self-expression and the aspects that have led us to create a virtual/digital self. Historically, society's digitization started with a single electronic mail between two computers right next to each other. Since then, the idea of exchanging data by connecting to the internet to interact with others started. Digital communication in the last decade has had quite a great leap.
A Social Network is a communication tool that allows people to share and exchange information through the internet. It is like word of mouth about a thousand times faster. It has obviously been an integral part of our life.
Over the years, the need for virtual social interactions became more apparent. This has led our concept of the self to extend over to the digital world. Which is why, now, our Digital Self has become part of our Extended Self.
Re-embodiment -. Commonly a phenomenon in online-role playing games and other platforms where we have the freedom to modify how we are perceived online. your social media profiles may only act as part of your extended self for those granted access to it, and while you are online. As an apparent part of our extended self, our possessions online highly affect our concept of self.
Co-construction of Self - Social networking sites have been seen as relevant to the psychological development among individuals between adolescence and adulthood, and over the last years, even for fairly younger ones. They can learn more about the culture and develop social skills through online interaction among people of the same age.
Distributed Memory -some people make use of the digital world as some form of virtual memory storage.
Escapism - refers to the idea of getting out of the "real world" and go into a seemingly "fleeting yet better world" (Tuan, 1998). Everybody may experience it already. The times where you feel stressed out from your studies or work that you need to do something else to breathe. For example, you play a game or watch a movie, and for a while, you forget some problems in school. Scientists call that experience escapism. You may experience the same feeling while playing sports and traveling for vacation.