Presenter: Noelle Jones
Mentor: Naomi Zack, Philosophy
Poster: 33
Major: History and Humanities
The purpose of this research is to propose the idea of a “virtual home” and how personal identity, privacy, law, technology and the traditional home have helped shape it. The “virtual home” is, in short, a collection of our identities and personal information on the internet, often accessed and updated via computer, smartphone, tablets, or other internet-capable devices. In an attempt to explain the social and legal complexities of technology’s effect on privacy and the home, this paper touches on many topics, including the physical home, symbolic homes, homelessness, personal identity, privacy, the public-private split, the virtual home, and modern technology. My hope is that this interdisciplinary research will inform academics across a range of fields on the importance of these issues, and incite them to tangible action in their virtual and geographic communities, using their current expertise and research interests.