Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
100
90
80
70
60
18-29
30-49
50-64
65+
50
40
30
20
10
0
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Fig. 6.2
Percent of U.S. population using digital social networks by age, 2005-2011. Source
Redrawn
from
Pew
Research
Fig. 6.3 Facebook users
worldwide, 2004-2011.
Source Author, using data
from Internetworldstats.com
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
6.2 Telemediated Networks and the Relational Ontology
of the Self
As the network society has grown apace, new forms of identity have risen in its wake
(Giddens
1991
). Much of social science, consequently, has become preoccupied
with relational understandings of how people view themselves and one another,
particularly as these perceptions and discourses are mediated through digital com-
munications (Whatmore
1997
). In contrast to the disembodied, autonomous indi-
vidual standing apart from the world who has occupied the heart of modernist social
theory since Descartes (most explicitly in that desolate creature homo economicus),
the relational self is conscious of its embodiment, embeddedness, and social origins
and consequences as they are manifested in a variety of ties to others. Relational
views of identity emphasize the construction of difference and the power relations
that accompany this process (Pile
2008
). In light of poststructuralist theorizations,
