Extentia recently conducted an online breakfast talk session with Dhammaratna Jawale, a media researcher and academician. A visiting faculty for various media, communications, and journalism institutes, he is currently working on his doctoral thesis. Called ‘The Digital Self: Living with Identity Negotiations’, the session shed light on how the information overload and screen culture affects our conventional ideas of identity.
It encompassed a meaningful discourse on what exactly the term ‘digital self’ means and how people’s day-to-day interaction with digital technology contributes to evolving their persona in the online world. The hour-long, remotely held talk concluded with Dhammaratna introducing the audience to the Identity Negotiation Theory in digital life, its impacts on human relationships, and the constant conflict of connectivity vs isolation across generations.