The individual in an ICT world

<jats:p> This article explores contemporary engagement with social media and other forms of information and communications technology in relation to identity formation and the individual. It is argued that in an information and communications technology world, the materialization as well as the materiality of identity is of a performative nature and it is subject to a negotiation of being both online and offline. This negotiation is associated with being recognized as having established a presence online. In the web of connected knowledge, exchange of information and multiple identifications, the individual comes into being through its participation in a complex system of watching and being watched. With a primary focus on what has come to be termed as participatory culture – a term which has also been criticized for masking its ambivalent nature behind the celebration of the birth of the ‘prosumer’ – often exemplified in the use of or participation in social media (an aspect of being online), the article tries to elucidate the darker sides of ‘being’ on social media through an examination of surveillance and sousveillance as they contribute to the (de)construction of the individual in an information and communications technology world. </jats:p>