Child of the Internet: Perceptions of Creativity in e-Identities

THE INTERNET BRINGS FORTH rapid, revolutionary, unsettling, often paradoxical changes to our post–Cold War society. One of the consequences of the Internet that inspired our experiments into the impact of creativity on the Internet is in its implicit equality. The concept of equality is familiar to people living in the United States: everybody is equal before the law, and this is the driving philosophy behind human rights. The Internet transforms this ideal (as is the case for many developing countries) to reality. For in law, the practical problem is one of paying for good lawyers—who may often be far too costly for the average person to afford. The law requires persuasion by lawyers. That was why Marx saw the law as an instrument of oppression by the rich against the poor. The Internet has enabled a practical realization of equality. It is precisely this equalizing effect of the Internet that we shall argue has made it critical to embed creativity in the design of a logo as used on the Internet. The Internet as it stands will be difficult if not impossible to be realized in any other than a dynamic, free society as in the United States. The root source of this equalization of the Internet is in the computer screen: limiting the exposure of a customer’s access to a web page. In every business, whether colossal and long established (as is IBM) or as minuscule as a backyard, home-based, one-person startup, that window frame is 8 by 11 inches. Extrapolating into the foreseeable future, every child born to this world may one day be allocated a www.name.com as an internet user.1 Children of the future will be so bombarded with images that only the truly creative will attract their eyes. We represent the coming of age of the Universe of an Internet Child figuratively (Fig. 1): a child whose web page (a circle) is super-linked and intensely, complexly, and intricately networked globally.2 Just like a unique identity card number (as in the case of Singapore), this may well be allocated to be hers or his for life. For it is from the Internet habits of the children of the future that the latter-day corporate giants (if these remain) and businesses will attract sales and cut a profit margin. What may initially draw the attention of this Child of the Internet to a business or corporation is the immediate perceived creativity, for example, as conveyed in the presence of a corporate logo. It is from the corporate logo that one learns about there exists an independent, non-virtual, legal person—seen as an e-identity on the Internet. As human beings, we enjoy sensations such as “wow” or conversely “yuck” upon seeing a symbol or picture. In other words, how a corporate logo impacts upon others is of critical importance in designing an e-identity, whether you are a one-person business or a giant, global outfit.