The Distributed Self: Virtual Worlds and the Future of Human Identity

This theoretical work develops two central premises. The first is that human identity, defined as a person’s conception and expression of his or her individuality, is not fixed and immutable but changes in response to revolutionary developments in culture and technology. The second is that we are currently in the early phases of one of these profound techno-cultural transitions: the rise of 3D virtual worlds and the formation of a ubiquitous, photorealistic, seamlessly integrated, and massively scaled metaverse (Dionisio et al., in press) that will dramatically reshape our conception and experience of the self.