{"id":385,"date":"2015-02-28T13:44:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-28T13:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paszcza.wordpress.com\/?p=42"},"modified":"2015-02-28T13:44:31","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T13:44:31","slug":"reflective-summary-the-question-of-multiple-online-identities-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2008-2015\/2015\/02\/28\/reflective-summary-the-question-of-multiple-online-identities-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflective summary: The question of multiple (online) identities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second topic of the course seemed like a natural continuation of previous blog posts. From question How do you interact with the Internet? <\/em>we have gone to discuss a more detailed problem: whether it is beneficial to have a single or multiple online identities.<\/p>\n

I was astonished by the number of ways students approached this topic. From presenting an overview of advantages and disadvantages of both options (on Sarah’s blog<\/a>), through introducing stronger arguments for one of the approaches (like in Tamara’s post<\/a>) or even considering the practicalities<\/em> – whether humans really are able to preserve multiple identities (Leigh’s<\/a> and Saber’s<\/a> posts). Such diversity was incredibly interesting for a reader and I personally have learned a lot about the topic through reading these posts.<\/p>\n

Tamara is a strong proponent of a single online identity. She wrote a convincing post<\/a> on how this particular approach is beneficial for a user (in terms of better visibility of his persona online) and for the Internet community (creation of trust between members, more responsibility for one’s actions). Although I partially disagree that the security issues are less important, the whole post was certainly well thought out and interestingly presented Tamara’s point of view.<\/p>\n

Leigh’s and Saber’s post are good examples of a diversity of presented opinion. Both approach the problem from a practical side, drawing opposite conclusions. Saber<\/a> argued that maintaining multiple online identities is a challenge and Web users are “struggling to draw the line between them”. On the other hand, Leigh<\/a> presents a number of technologies that help maintain separation of identities. Furthermore, he posted a very interesting TED talk (see below), which shows that from psychologist perspective humans may be able to maintain multiple personas on the Internet.<\/p>\n