#UOSM2008 Topic 2 Summary

What is interesting is that all of my peers have taken different approaches to ‘discussing the arguments for and against having more than one online identity’. Hence this was extremely beneficial for myself, as seeing the argument from other people’s point of view provokes a lot of questions on this subject. With so many views, stances and information from all the blogs and extra links people have provided, it is hard to pinpoint exactly where my thoughts lie, so I have decided to narrow  down and summarise and further explore my thoughts on the original topic,  ‘Discuss the argument for and against having more than one online identity’.  I may have strayed from in my original blogpost, but thought it was important to ask different question to gain a broader knowledge and insight on the topic.

Arguments For

• Each partial online identity will shed light on a different aspect of your life. What I mean by this is that Facebook will give insight to your personal life whereas LinkedIn may give insight to the professional aspect of your life. All these identities I view not as multiple but as partial, as the aggregate of all these is your actual identity. This is similar to real life, you may have your professional identity, your social identity and your family identity, but at the end of the day your whole identity is all these combined which makes each individual unique.

• With each partial online identity, especially on social media platforms, you can control the privacy settings, so you have more control on the data and information others can obtain. I search my name on a fortnightly basis on the internet, this may seem excessive but making sure the content I write on the internet is suitable is extremely important, as others may draw conclusions about my identity if I am not careful.

• Using a pseudonym or remaining anonymous is beneficial especially for those who wish to seek sensitive information or talk about issues which may be embarrassing.  This may be joining in forums to talk about health issues or asking advice on relationships, the list is never ending. As one of my peers mentioned in his blog, this is crucial for freedom of expression!

• Pseudonyms may allow certain users to escape from reality, where confidence may be an issue and they may feel unfulfilled. Pseudonyms are often used in virtual communities, this allows these individuals to express themselves and do things which they may not be comfortable doing in real life, and acts as a sense of release for them.

Arguments Against

• Having numerous partial identities is hard to manage, and requires time and energy to maintain. There are however social media management platforms which may make this easier such as HootSuite.

• Using many different platforms, where each platform shows a different partial identity will allow companies to gather a lot of different data on you. I think this boils down to how confident an individual feels with the data which is available on them, on social media this may be controllable to an extent, but Google, Amazon, eBay all have data on you: what you search, what you buy, what you sell.

• Authenticity is an important concept, by only having one online identity this can be achieved. Authenticity also ties into trust. Being able to trust others on the internet is crucial, in a world where increasingly the world of offline and online is merging, we all need to be able to trust others online like we trust our friends in real life.

• Using a pseudonym or being anonymous online may cause some individuals to not act responsibly online, this can lead to trolling and cyber-bullying. Many cases such as the case of teenager Hannah Smith was bullied online by anonymous users on ask.fm that she killed herself (The Guardian, 2013). It is cases like these which bring to light how serious cyber-bullying is.

My view on security and privacy is make sure you know the platforms well before any personal information is put on it! Perhaps content that is extremely personal which is kept private online should never see the internet at all? Security I have learnt is only as secure as the platform you are using has made it! The debate about security and privacy in general is always one which makes headlines,  take the scandal of the news of the world phone hacking for example. Although having an online presence is crucial in this day and age, make sure your data is safe!

An important aspect of online identities which I picked up on throughout the week is also the online identity other people and companies build up on you. This is how they perceive your online identity. This is perhaps an even more crucial aspect of online identities, as this is the part you cannot control! It works the same in real life as well, for instance I may feel like that I am being friendly to someone by asking them a lot of questions, but to the other person I may be perceived as nosey. This unfortunately, we cannot control. We must then make sure what we are saying, and how we are interacting with others online is positive, especially on social media platforms.

So now you may ask, whats my conclusion? Having multiple (partial) online identities has a part to play in society (anonymity and pseudonymity) as it provides benefits to certain individuals, however authenticity and trust is key to the future of online interactions. Therefore I think that individuals should try to use their real names in all aspects of online mediums, and even though different platforms are used, where partial identities will be built, by using the same name hopefully others will be able to search for them and build a full online identity on the individual! For companies, the ‘Big Data’ phenomenon will become increasingly important as a way of segmenting consumers. This is also a chance for digital marketing to blossom and become increasingly tailored and engaging to individuals (ClickZ, n.d). This is one of the aspects which is fascinating to me as I want to go into the strategy and planning side of a marketing agency, and to see how this data can be turned into useful information which they can utilise to tailor campaigns is exciting!

 

References

The Guardian (2013) Teenager Hannah Smith killed herself because of online bullying, says father. [Online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/aug/06/hannah-smith-online-bullying [Accessed 28th February 2014]

ClickZ (n.d) The Big Data Phenomenon. [Online] Available at: http://www.turn.com/news/the-big-data-phenomenon [Accessed 1st March 2014]

Filed under: Topic 2 Tagged: bigdata, online identity, privacy, pseudonyms, security, UOSM2008