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Some time ago, I met a very bright and lively graduate, who registered with Facebook during the academic year 2003–2004, when she was a student at Harvard. Her Facebook ID number was 246. Impressive. A bit like being the 246th person to land on a new continent. Such Facebook ID numbers no longer exist. In a few years, that continent has become rather crowded, as she has been joined by several hundreds of million users worldwide. Half a billion was reached in July 2010. It is a good reminder of how more and more people spend an increasing amount of time ‘onlife’, interacting with and within an infosphere that is neither entirely virtual nor only physical. It is also a good reminder of how influential information and communication technologies are becoming in shaping our personal identities, as technologies of the self.

DOI: 10.1007/s13347-012-0083-6

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