Future Identities

Defining identity in a hyper-connected world

Published: 22 January 2013

The UK government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills commissioned a study which set out to explore how technology is shaping our online identities and what it means for policy decisions. The key education extracts from the report are listed below: [1]

  • Digital literacy is essential in enabling people to make full use of computer technology and the internet to express their identities, and to connect with social media, services, and information. A critical issue for the future will be to ensure that individuals have the knowledge, understanding, and technological literacy to enable them to take control of their own online identities, and to be aware of their online presence and how it could be used by others.
  • Digital technology will play an ever-increasing role in the development and expression of identities. Therefore, levels of access to the internet and computer skills for individuals will be important for society and for the UK, potentially playing a key role in global competitiveness. Given that identities are both a social and personal resource, it will become even more necessary to ensure equality of digital access, freedom of expression, and security. There is a danger that full engagement with the digital environment might remain largely a middle and higher-income preserve, which may create new forms of inequality while potentially entrenching existing ones more deeply.
  • The trend towards great social plurality, demographic trends and the gradual reduction in importance of some traditional aspects of identity, suggest that communities in the UK over the next 10 years are likely to become less cohesive as traditional identities become more fragmented.
  • Digital literacy is essential to enable people to make full use of computing and the internet to express their identities, and to connect with social media, services, and information. There needs to be a focus on raising awareness of the permanence of personal information available on the internet. Digital literacy will also be crucial to address a potential skills gap to enable the UK to be globally competitive in making best use of the technology revolution. A key issue for the future will be to ensure adequate levels of technological literacy across all social groups, to enable individuals to take control of their own online identities, and to be aware of their online presence and how it could be used by others.

 

Future Identities

Digital literacy will be crucial
to address the potential skills gap

The report highlights the need to address the growing digital divide between individuals and communities. The continuing rise and pervasiveness of the knowledge economy and its demand for a workforce that is educated and trained in the use and application of new technologies will place pressure on policy makers to ensure that there is greater equity across the education sector; however the report suggests widening divisions between schools. In the article entitled Mind the Gap I explore the growing digital divide within the education sector. [2]

The report goes on to state how technology is redefining our very identity and how we will come to live and work in a hyper-connected world. In connected and networked schools the growing presence of technology is changing how teachers and students, teachers and teachers, students and students; and schools and parents perceive and engage with one another. In the workplace the hyper-connected economy has already redefined who we are and how we engage and collaborate with others. In Technologies of the Self I examine the broader definition of technology and how it is altering how we perceive ourselves within an education setting. [3]

 

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