Digital Identity

Since the technological advances of the 20th century, the invention of the World Wide Web has allowed it's users to develop multiple identities. An individual is no longer one personality or one image, we have allowed ourselves to create these many identities through online persona's which we adopt for numerous websites, particularly social networks such as Facebook or Twitter or virtual communities such as SecondLife or World of Warcraft.

There are always dangers with posting your real identity online without letting too much information into the World Wide Web accessible to virtually anyone with online predators and stalkers on the web who exploit other user’s vulnerability. An interactive website called http://www.takethislollipop.com/ became a viral hit when it showed users when connected to their Facebook how their private information can be used, showing a creepy man stalking their personal profile. 

As an internet user, I also have profiles on the web for social networks to keep in touch with friends and their usual status updates and photo uploads. I feel that my identity online closely matches with my own real identity as a person with the use of my real name, picture and educational information although i feel that this allows other 'friends' to add me based on if they know me from attending the same school or as an old friend who recognises me from the photo, this is the only information that can will be displayed to those who don't already have me as a friend. I don't attempt to create a false identity in using real information but only so those who know me can add me. I take control over what I post on the web and there are settings for changing which audiences are allowed to view what. I feel in this way that my identity online is well-protected when aware of what privacy settings are available.

The importance of the digital identity has become essential in youth culture. As we as young people have come together to create our own identities through the representation of our online media from our photographs to our hobbies and likes. We each create an identity to represent to others, often identifying with an aspect of our culture with regard to particular groups and activities (e.g sport teams/societies or musical interests). Erving Goffman’s theory of self-presentation talks about the roles we play in many parts and our persona as a ‘mask’, we present a performance to observers of what we want them to believe and in this way create a public self through our online representation.

This online identity is a way of creating our ‘ideal self’ - the kind of person you would like to be and how you would like others to see you. Through gatekeeping we can filter out information that could cause negative perceptions, such as removing content like embarrassing photographs and adding interests or status updates to give a certain idea to others of what you might seem like. The reality of it is that in the flesh people are not what they seem to their online identity, thus creating false personas and identities.

Our identities or images of ourselves often change over time and is formed through our interaction with other people. Our social interaction with people can make us feel part of a community or part of interweaving friendship groups maintaining contact online. The interaction we have with others is important in forming opinions and changing views, especially for bloggers who express their opinions online.

Burton (2005) talks about how our ‘identity has a number of dimensions’ including ‘a sense of place, history, cultural practises, role and relationship and occupation’. These aspects of identity are important and show identity as becoming a combination of many factors. Our online identity has further allowed us to reach more people with similarities and keep contact with many across the world, yet maintaining barriers to onlookers of their true self. I feel that our digital identities are are not just one stable and homogeneous identity but now consist of fragments which are always changing. 

Sources:
Burton, G. (2005) Media and Society: Critical Perspectives, Open University Press.