Turkle and the Study of the Self (Identity) and Technology

"Psychedelicized" image of a Samsung Galaxy S5, Sherry Turkle's evocative object

I believe I found my "muse" in the works of Sherry Turkle as I attempt to flesh out the concept of the fractal self. The more that I read about Turkle and her work, the more I am convinced that she has nailed the concepts I have been attempting to capture in the coining of the phrase fractal self/identity. According to the entry on her in the Encyclopedia of Cyber Behavior (UTD user access), Turkle is a pioneer in the study of technology and the self. Her background is in psychoanalysis from which she founded a concept of the decentered self that says "the coherent, autonomous ego is an illusion" (Psychoanalytic Politics, p. 17), and it is instead "a shifting cacophony of various machine-like parts each pursuing its own desires" (Ibid, p. 149). Defined this way, Turkle proposes a self or self-identity that functions as a kind of mosaic – one that possesses some level of “singularity” (coherence) and yet is ever-shifting – that each of us builds based on biology/genetics, relationships, and experiences, to name a handful of influential phenomena.

An important component to self-building and self-definition is the evocative object. This is an object that, in both a literal and figurative sense, evokes memories, emotions, and meaning in the subject. The computer or networked device (technology) has for the modern person become the evocative object de rigueur. That is to say that the computer, the internet, the smartphone, the digital communication device, the killer app, and/or the SNS (social networking site) has for the vast majority of digital citizens become the evocative object that plays the biggest role in self- or identity-building. Through these technologies, we build relationships, express ourselves, get feedback from outsiders both familiar and strange to us, and invent a culture for ourselves. It is through these objects of profound importance and meaning that we realize, consciously or not, “human possibility,” or so Turkle would argue.

To (perhaps grossly) summarize Turkle's research, technology as evocative object plays a major role in building and defining the decentered self. She would argue that we can't separate technology from our emotions and social life/sociality. She has been in the forefront in identifying how technology profoundly (“singularly”) impacts the question of human identity and self. We define ourselves through technology. We can build one or more identities through technology.

In any event, I believe the decentered self as Turkle would put it draws direct parallels to the fractal self. Both are fragmented and fractured, pieced together from here and there, and can exist as more than one. Furthermore, technology plays a central role in the contruction of the fractal self or fractal identity. I will return to it later, but this raises the question that essentially the line between analog ("real life") and digital ("cyber," "online," or "networked") is blurred. Is it worthy making that distinction any more?