As I’m sure you are well aware from reading our course reader amongst other things, there has been a debate on the idea of online identity. Some believe online identity to be continuous and an extension of our offline identities whereas other theorists such as Sherry Turkle who wrote works such as “Life On The Screen” in 1997 see online identities as being potentially quite different to offline identities.
These conflicting perspectives really got me thinking about this issue. On facebook I list my interests, music tastes, my favourite films and my hobbies which in most ways are very reflective of my offline persona. However, a comment I read by Sherry Turkle stuck with me. She said online we have the opportunity to edit identities and have the opportunity to pick and choose what qualities we want to present and hide from our peers. I don’t know about y’all but in my opinion, she was pretty bang on. I’m certain that we all do this. Avatars, websites like second life or games like Sims allow the user to alter themselves. Second life is notorious for this, users can change their gender, age, race, skin, hair and eye colour and can even choose not to be human!
This is also very true for social network users. On my own profile I take much care to ensure that the pictures posted of me aren’t unflattering and will insist they are deleted or untag myself to maintain an attractive image. Other ways people do this is by talking themselves up, maybe claiming to be more athletic than they really are, or claiming to love Quentin Tarantino films when perhaps they’ve only seen a snippet of one of the Kill Bill films and so forth. The anonymous nature of the internet allows us to do this and to express our identities any which way we want! So, are online identities really all that authentic? I would love to hear your views!
These conflicting perspectives really got me thinking about this issue. On facebook I list my interests, music tastes, my favourite films and my hobbies which in most ways are very reflective of my offline persona. However, a comment I read by Sherry Turkle stuck with me. She said online we have the opportunity to edit identities and have the opportunity to pick and choose what qualities we want to present and hide from our peers. I don’t know about y’all but in my opinion, she was pretty bang on. I’m certain that we all do this. Avatars, websites like second life or games like Sims allow the user to alter themselves. Second life is notorious for this, users can change their gender, age, race, skin, hair and eye colour and can even choose not to be human!
This is also very true for social network users. On my own profile I take much care to ensure that the pictures posted of me aren’t unflattering and will insist they are deleted or untag myself to maintain an attractive image. Other ways people do this is by talking themselves up, maybe claiming to be more athletic than they really are, or claiming to love Quentin Tarantino films when perhaps they’ve only seen a snippet of one of the Kill Bill films and so forth. The anonymous nature of the internet allows us to do this and to express our identities any which way we want! So, are online identities really all that authentic? I would love to hear your views!
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