One says the net 's original evangelists, that our experience with the Internet is changing our identity, both online and offline

"The imperative of self-knowledge has always been central to the philosophical," wrote MIT professor Sherry Turkle in the seminal book on the Web and the self, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet . Published in 1995 as the second in a trilogy that explores our relationship with technology, looked at it as we are who we are in online spaces. And what that means for us offline.

The good news is that the results are positive: "Play has always been an important aspect of our own efforts to build the identity," she said, referencing developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, and nodded to the theories of psychoanalyst Freud, Lacan and young. "In terms of our views about the self," she wrote, "dominated by new images of diversity, heterogeneity, flexibility and fragmentation of current thinking about human identity. '\

In this postmodern world, anyone can be anything they 'd like a lesbian Syrian blogger. Tom MacMaster, a lot of consternation, as the author was revealed behind the fictional, Damascus-based "Amina Abdullah al-Omari Arraf", claims that he has the platform to express themselves and to play around with self-expression. He is the latest high-profile case that Turkle 's description demonstrates the Web as an identity laboratory.

At the time Life on the Screen was published, were the freaks and geeks populating the internet 's tubes, a special series, most were students and their professors from a remarkably small talent pool, and a surprisingly small geography. They were technically savvy and generally open on the new field of virtual exploration, to create within the networks of this emerging communication platform. They were, in other words, liberal, enlightened types who are more willing to unprecedented fluidity of self-expression that this new technology as technophobes clear that all on-line was either a freak or a geek thought were granted hug.

As a psychoanalyst and a web user himself, Turkle spent much of the book explains why the articulation of multiple pathological personalities wasn 't. In contrast to its Latin root, meaning not necessarily identity, "the same", she argued. "No one aspect can be considered the absolute, true self will be taken up", she wrote, claiming that the Web allows us the opportunity to present our \ know "inner diversity". In the great tradition of psychoanalysis, she said that self-realization to come to terms about who we are, and the integration of every aspect in a coherent and well integrated us.

These days almost everyone has experienced this kind of identity play. Even if you have 've never been in an online game or dare already signed-up member of a web community, you \ a profile for a well-developed social network, writing a blog, created a Web site, said an article carried or a continuation of updates on Twitter tsunami. You 've probably done more than one. Congratulations: you have the postmodern experience actively construct out your online identity.

Turkle described as more than 15 years, the Web is a medium in which action is absolutely necessary to express ourselves. In contrast to the rich space offline life, where our identity cues are away seeing, hearing, smelling given, touch and taste, we do online.

Most of us present an idealized "me", which produced specifically for our diverse, fragmented and implicit audience. Often means implementing our best in each of the media that we use: We clean and pout for profile images, we language attitudes and opinions that we think will give us the people we most wish us how we want to attractiveness and tweet the information we find interesting and won 't make us waste. Most importantly, and for the most part, we first think.

But things are different than the writing time, as Turkle Life on the Screen . Most communities were populated by strangers, and that the anonymity provided an ease with which even the follow-up was relatively free. Today, our virtual social life increasingly integrated with our offline social lives. For example, Facebook requires account holders 'real names and commercial real currency on a friendship. Freedom of expression is limited by the threat of off-line consequences of actions. Your reputation is offline now far closer to your reputation online bound as before.

Contemporary online identity is also no longer in the sole control of the individual. On the modern web, we comprise the personal, idealised representations that we curate and the pictures of ourselves looking not so hot, taken by so-called "friends" at a party and uploaded on to a social network. The halcyon days of identity play Turkle described in 1995 are not available to most of today's web users; in fact, our experience of contemporary identity online is disarmingly similar to offline.

Turkle 's latest book, Alone Together , Is published in Britain this week. It's an amazing turnaround from her previous two books, which were much more utopian in tone. Their new approach, our relationship with technology is characterized by 15 years of observation of a mainstream consumer base co-construct with persistent access information on the network. She believes this is his tribute, which will be taken. "It used to be," I have a feeling I want to make a call, '"she said at a recent debate in the British Library," [and this has changed] to "I want to have a feeling I need to send a text. '\'

I still subscribe to the old Turkle. Consequence-free online environments allow us to practice and play without fear of repercussions from offline, and offer an exceptional place to experience the liquid from ourselves. On the Internet I can be anyone, even a dog. Found as Tom MacMaster, still places online where this is possible. He found his audience, as I have: I tweet, therefore I am.