IMAGE OF A DIGITAL NATIVE
The digital native is depicted as a selfish, screen-facing, uninterested young person. This person is shaping a world where identity is meaningless and (respect for) authority is missing. Ingredients we have always used to cook up trust. But is this worldview valid? Can we justify casting this harsh verdict?

‘BEING’ ON FACEBOOK
If you look at ‘You facebook, therefore you are’ you will see a different image. This phrase tells us the importance of an online identity. Not just any online identity but one with lasting relationships. Because if you switch identity all the time you are not facebooking properly. You are not a nice person to be with. If YOU are not on facebook you don’t exist, you don’t have an identity (for the people that matter.) People can not ‘interface’ with you. They can not find you, they can not engage with you. In effect ‘they’ want you to be there so they can be interested and engage.

YOUR IDENTITY IS MY CONSTRUCT
I think we see the reversal of identity. Identity is something we individualistically create for ourself, we think. But perhaps identity only manifests in the ‘eye of the beholder’. We are not shaping our identity, we are merely marketing a manifestation to someone else. Identity is not something I ‘put on’ myself. Identity only has meaning in someone who identifies me, preferably to engage with.