When our memory, and large chunks of our lives, are in a corporate cloud and depend on it, what is left of us? where are we? Where is our autonomy? And basically: who are we in such a world? Dr. Oshri Bar-Gil* discusses our “Google Self.”
Today’s technological environment is very diverse and contains many companies. In the current article, Dr. Oshri Bar-Gil focuses on the technological environment of only one company – Google – which offers its users a very wide range of technologies. For the sake of research on the subject, he analyzed criticism of Google users on its products as they appeared in blogs, books and even academic studies. The reviews included referring to the possibilities to decide or act differently from the way they were used to in the past following the use of Google products and to conclude from this about the new capabilities added to them. The article presents the main answers to the question of how our use of Google affects who we are. The first part deals with the question of how the environment in which we live has changed and which has led us to use Google as a partner, after which Bar-Gil reviews a number of concrete examples and finally he discusses the possible consequences of thinking about Google as a “life partner”, both on a personal and social level.
The extended self: Humans have learned to think “through” technologies external to their biological bodies. The various technological aids are an extension of the self beyond the actual body, but in a way that is not disconnected from it. The article also discusses the expansion of capabilities by Google’s digital services.
His central claim is that the cumulative effect of using Google services creates the “Google Self”: an extension of us humans. Using our data on Google’s servers, we entrust it with decisions, actions and interactions in the information era. Following this expansion, thought processes in our lives change and even the way we think about ourselves.
* Dr. Oshri Bar-Gil is a psychologist, a graduate of the interpretation and culture program at Bar Ilan University and researches how to be human in a world saturated with technologies
This article is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation, “Google’s self – the perception of the self in the information era”, which was done at the Interdisciplinary Studies Unit at Bar-Ilan University, under the guidance of Prof. Hizki Shoham.
