Fragmentation of Personality

Conventional wisdom says that America is increasingly polarized, that our society is more divided than ever. Is this also true at the level of each of us as individuals? Are our personalities becoming fragmented as well?

In an age of sound-bites and catchy advertising tag lines, how much thought is given before labels are assigned? How should labels be interpreted and understood?

Trends in colloquial speech are revealing reflections of our social consciousness. A typical casual exchange: “How are you doing?” is often followed by “I’m putting my life together” and “I’m trying to balance my work-life priorities.” Are we more conscious today and feeling more challenged by different aspects of our lives?

Before the digital age, we had a handful of identities, mostly determined by our relationships with specific individuals, starting with families, and organizations. We are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, lovers, enemies. These are meaningful because they are truly personal. Most of us ultimately associate ourselves, who we are, with one name, a legally validated identity issued by a government agency.

In today’s online world, we have dozens of identities in the form of different “usernames” and “passwords”, for different online services. For reasons of security, we are warned that using the same, or common passwords (and usernames) increases the risk that cybercriminals can breach our accounts and steal our money as well as legal identities. This appears to be a new kind of societal problem that never existed before. We can thank our advanced communications technologies. What is the impact on our psyches?

How do we integrate all these labels and identities? Doesn’t each identity represent a facet of our personalities? By joining online communities, we can start relationships with other people who share very specific interests. How convenient! We can quickly search large databases using precise filters to sort and identify people we think we might like, based on those labels. Since we interact primarily with one or a few well-defined dimensions, what is the basis for our relationships? What has happened to the confusing complexity of dealing with real people?

If we can’t or choose not to meet the challenge of real people, what does that say about our courage to understand the reality of who we are, our own complex, often paradoxical nature? How do we learn about ourselves, if not from our interactions with others, some of whom disagree with us and challenge our ideas and beliefs? From early childhood, we begin testing our parents, our naïve beliefs. By arguing with them, we gain strength and clarity. Where our ideas end up in our disagreements is less important than the process of engagement. Isn’t this how we learn to protect ourselves in society, by shaping our personalities?

The multiplicity of our online identities has another troubling aspect. How many of us remember the dozens of usernames and passwords that we need to access the information that has become critically important in our lives? Access to information is real power. Our technology offers the illusion as well as the reality of power through ease of access. Criminals are experts in understanding that our greatest vulnerability is ourselves, our selfishness, our laziness, our lack of respect for others. This has always been true in every age of civilization and every stage of technological advancement.

The current challenge we face is attacking us at a fundamental level we are not prepared for. What should we do? We cannot and would not want to roll back the technologies. We need to re-think what security means in this new world. We need to design our social and our work lives to include engagement of our multi-faceted personalities and societies. This will require a different kind of mutual respect for each other, especially those whose beliefs differ, perhaps even dramatically, from our own. A different approach toward education, toward learning, will inform new and diverse kinds of expectations. A radical social revolution?

Perhaps the response to our current condition is a renaissance of the human spirit, a celebration of human creativity and artistic expression? What legacy will we leave for the next generation? How can our children and our children’s children grow up to build and maintain healthier societies based on the messy realities of human nature?