Composing a Kaleidoscope: A Scholarly Personal Narrative of Academia in a Time of Digital Overload

Suzanne Porath, Kansas State UniversityFollow

Keywords

digital identity, digiphrenia, fractal identities, mediated selfhood, techno-cultural disruption, digital multitasking, identity in the digital age, online presence fragmentation, virtual identity construction, analog-to-digital self, identity performance online, multitasking and attention span, mobile academic work, hybrid presence

Abstract

s Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) explores the experience of fractured academic identity amid illness, remote teaching, and digital saturation. Anchored in the methodology of SPN as described by Nash (2004) this narrative integrates personal storytelling with critical reflection and theoretical engagement. Drawing on Rushkoff’s concept of digiphrenia, Makowka’s fractal identity, and Gergen’s absent presence, the paper examines how academic life in the digital age increasingly demands simultaneous performances of self across disjointed timelines and virtual spaces. Through vignettes of presenting at concurrent conferences, teaching from chemotherapy bays, and supporting a dissertation defense in unlikely places, this piece reflects on the ethics of care, professionalism, and presence. It argues that digital overload reshapes not only how educators teach and connect, but also how they understand themselves as embodied, relational, and recursive beings within what is here called the kaleidoscope of modern academic life.

Recommended Citation

Porath, Suzanne (2025) "Composing a Kaleidoscope: A Scholarly Personal Narrative of Academia in a Time of Digital Overload," Mid-Western Educational Researcher: Vol. 37: Iss. 1, Article 18.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25035/mwer.37.01.18
Available at: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/mwer/vol37/iss1/18