“The sum is more than its parts – Aristoteles, Metaphysics”
My theory is that expatriates who shape their public persona in one cultural environment and move to another one, experience the transformation of the digital-self very intensively as they are exposed to cultural distortions.
We all know for example the moment when we try to solve a problem but don`t find a solution. And when we are about to drop the idea, all of a sudden an unintended thought brings a solution. This may indicate that even the perceiver of a piece of information may not have full control of the information being transformed by cognitions in his own brain and given as feedback. These cognitions are partially shaped and defined by culture.
People who move to bigger cities are, according to Georg Simmel, exposed to a higher density of culture which de-individualises and creates a cultural overhead and a structure our brain gets interweaved with.
“The most significant characteristic of the metropolis is this functional
extension beyond its physical boundaries” (1969, Simmel, p.56)
Is a a public image in London or Portsmouth automatically different from the one in Shanghai because of such a functional overhead which modifies our cognitions?
[References]
http://crisisfronts.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/brian-miller_cognition-in-the-city.pdf
Simmel, G. (2012): The Metropolis and the Mental Life. Jazzybee [Kindle Edition] http://www.amazon.de/dp/B009A6MVRK