20th century psychologists like Jung, Freud and Lacan have done extensive work in unpacking the human psyche into categories like persona, ego etc, all geared toward studying the different guises present within any one person when we are put in different situations and scenarios. The invention and popularisation of the internet has created a further dimension for a person to exert their personalities in. I believe now that anyone well versed in the world of the internet has an internet persona. Many people come across dramatically different on social networking sites or when say posting an ebay ad or making a comment on a news story than they do in the real world. And it's so very easy to fall into an inconsistent internet persona with real life persona, when the computer is an everyday object that is easy to form an intimate bond with, while offering you the possibility to interact with millions of faceless people at ease. What the internet persona could potentially be is the guardless human consciousness that is interacting with the world, the person who is in his room, relaxed, without a public persona, but still managing to interact with the world.
The popularity of pornography over the internet is also exemplary of this unguarded person interacting with the world. Whereas previously renting a porn film from a shop would have involved a level of brashness and public acceptance of carnal desires, the internet affords discreet explorations of the darkest recesses of sexuality, and this justifies the increasingly brutal, abstract and even sickening nature of pornography produced today.
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