Down the Rabbit Hole: Identity and Societal Mutation

Abstract

We are all to one degree or another mesmerized by the new world that computer technology and cyberspace has opened up. Like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, we popped down this rabbit hole never considering to what extent it would affect our lives. As Carroll so aptly noted:

When the rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge… In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again. (“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Carroll, [1865]2009)