Individuality in a Social Age by Mac Clevinger, December 17, 2015.
It can be hard for an individual in the modern day to have a sense of uniqueness given the sheer number of other people in similar conditions to themselves, and the tendency for groups to move together in regards to trends and interests. Within a community, or social group, it is certainly possible to define yourself in unique methods while comparing yourself to your fellow individuals, but on a larger scale that one may be more likely to compare themselves against, they’ll find similarities that could attribute to a feeling of having your idea of a unique personality, of being your own person who can’t in any way be found redundant, under attack, and in threat of revealing that your way of thought and being are not, in fact, your own, but a product of moving with a majority instead of forging your own path.
However, after the advent of long distance communication and the mass production of routes to express one’s innermost self, after the population boomed and your closest friends and colleagues didn’t have to live within an hour’s walk of your home, this sense of identity shifted. When life wasn’t about doing a job to stay alive, when leisure and hobbies became an integral part of the lives of mankind, you didn’t share an identity with those living near you; in fact, you may not even know who they are. Our sense of identity is based on the communities we surround ourselves with, and no longer are we required to live with the communities we’re born into. We can find solace in people far away, we can go to new places when we like, we don’t need to ensure strong connections with everyone in order to survive.
In our modern age, despite issues of overanalyzing our own lot in life and finding it wanting in the face of a dream that can never genuinely be reached, we are actually freer than ever to create and develop our own selves however we wish. We can take our past and exonerate it in our lives, or leave it behind and craft a new future for ourselves to follow for as long as we feel. We have choice that was never available in the world a scant few centuries ago, more options and more ways to find whatever we consider to be our own true selves, and the resources to follow through on those choices. We can’t be forced down a road by circumstance or chance because, as a race, we have opened every door we’ve come across and still find more every day to aid us in exploring every nook and cranny of our individual selves and find that niche we all want to fill. True, occasions may occur wherein we act a certain way or feign interest in a subject as a method of socially blending in and being accepted, but that is a product of an evolved need for group acceptance and the security provided therein and not as a fault of the evolution of social interests.
Has our modern age made us lose individuality and that element of uniqueness we all want, deep down, in our lives? No. The advances of society and technology have walked hand-in-hand to bring about a world with fewer borders and more access to all the beautiful and wonderful things that human hands have wrought, and created a global community more willing to share those interests between each other to achieve a better end for the world. The focus of each person has shifted over the years from survival to personal fulfillment, and the advances of society have only benefitted this new goal of the human race. Whether or not a person is able to be appeased by an existence based on a personal comfort level regarding the issue of redundant interests in an ever-growing population and a limited number of routes to find spiritual happiness is a matter based more on the psychology of the race than on the impact of growing technology and communication in our modern world, and as such is a negligible consideration to the concept posed.