"Brand me" or our reliance on digital technology for identity-building

The week 4 lecture Social media: Brand me and the death of privacy threw light on another reason why a 'Digital Sabbath' is a frightening concept for younger people, particularly the types of people who may be reading our web feature. Our online persona is an integral part of our identity, and managing our online identities becomes a full-time self-branding project. Therefore, the concept of cutting oneself off all together provokes not only FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), but a feeling of losing a part of yourself, of ceasing to exist... in virtuality at least.

Alison Hearn in her article 'Meat, Mask, Burden' explains how the concept of self-branding has emerged from the capitalist, neoliberal, individualistic discourses which lead us to conceptualise ourselves as commodities. Ruth Page analyses how Twitter is used for the construction of self:

In line with current work in discourse analysis, the processes of self-branding and micro-celebrity understand identity as discursively constructed through interactions with others ... where social media genres are ‘technologies of subjectivity’ through which the self is written into being.

Ruth Page, "The linguistics of self-branding and micro-celebrity in Twitter" (2012: 182)

The idea of working on a 'Brand Me' or 'Me Inc.' is not confined to corporate-speak and self-branding workshops. As social media becomes more tightly woven into our normal channels of communication and relationship-building, considering the Digital Sabbath may strike fear of a loss of control. While time away from technology (particularly physically removing yourself from it) may seem luxurious and tempting, the knowledge that the online world will continue without you is enough to scare most people into staying on the hamster wheel, for fear of what may happen while they are gone.