Abstract

Using an anthropological and critical philosophical interpretation of digital culture, this paper explored the reconfiguration of human identity in the era of social media, mainly referencing Byung-Chul Han’s ideas. It maintained that by turning identity into a regime of visibility, performance, and ongoing self optimization, social media platforms have radically changed the conditions of selfhood. The self in our digital world is being built through carefully chosen photos, algorithmic feedback, and social validation measures like likes and followers rather than being largely based on physical presence or interior depth. The paper illustrated how digital platforms exacerbate self exploitation processes while concurrently undermining interiority and contemplative life, drawing on Han’s critique of neoliberal subjectivity, transparency culture, and the accomplishment society. The article further showed that the logic of hypervisibility promoted by social media contributes to the disappearance of alterity, as relational encounters are replaced by algorithmically filtered sameness and echo chambers of affirmation. This shift produces a fragmented and exhausted subject who is perpetually exposed yet paradoxically alienated from authentic self understanding. From an anthropological perspective, the article highlights how digital identity marks a transformation of the human being into a hybrid entity shaped by both technological infrastructures and neoliberal cultural imperatives. It concludes by suggesting that a critical rethinking of digital subjectivity is necessary in order to recover dimensions of interiority, ethical relation, and meaningful presence in contemporary life.

Keywords: Digital identity; Social media; Philosophical anthropology; Byung-Chul Han; Selfhood; Neoliberal subjectivity.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21137155

Emmanuel Edeh PhD
Department of Philosophy
Claretian University of Nigeria
ORCID ID: 0009-0000-5360-5415