Multiple Online Identites: A Reflection
Coming into the topic I already had a basic understanding of the main points of the debate, mainly due to following the debate surrounding the anonymous leaking of photos, however I found it very interesting building upon this knowledge, and soon discovered that the issue was not as black and white as it seemed, especially when I came across the ideas of Internet Society (undated).
Through engaging with my peers I soon found many different dimensions to the debate. Sophie made an intriguing point by suggesting that people are changing their behaviours for the better online as partial identities are merged into one, allowing for increased accountability, with Dom adding that the opposite is also true; identities that are more anonymous potentially allow for behaviours that may not be exhibited otherwise in more accountability online identities. Jess then introduced me to the idea of cookies, which I did some brief research on, but I did not get around to responding which is something that I will look to improve on next time.
In addition, something I did not see considered on any blogs that I read but did probe when commenting on Jess’s blog, was whether individual considerations were made when entering personal information online and if people thought about who they were sending information to, and would urge others to provide their insight into this.
The comments I made on other people’s blogs were over the word limit, but I felt this was necessary in disclosing what I wanted to say.
All in all, most posts and subsequent comments that I read had an overall arguments that agreed with my own; multiple online identities can be on the spectrum of completely open and honest to fraudulent and anonymous, but it depends on what the online identity is used for, and is the context behind the identity that is important, not just an argument of openness vs. anonymity.
Adam
Comment 1: http://uzoweblife.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/multiple-online-identities/comment-page-1/#comment-3
