How Twitter Changes Your Identity

Social networks like Twitter not only blur the line between public and private selves, but also between authentic and contrived ones. Encouraged to open a Twitter account by her publisher to promote a forthcoming book, Peggy Ornstein finds herself inventing her own psychology: “If all the world was once a stage, it has now become a reality TV show: we mere players are not just aware of the camera; we mug for it. The expansion of our digital universe—Second Life, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter—has shifted not only how we spend our time but also how we construct identity.”