Journal Prompt:
- Provide an evaluation of the article’s position on comparing online and offline identities. Use examples from the article to support your evaluation.
- Provide a comparison of the similarities and differences between your own online and offline identities.
- Describe how technology impacts how online identities are constructed, including the construction of your own online identity.
As this is a journal entry and not a formal paper, I feel comfortable admitting that I had trouble completing this assignment. I read Hongladarom’s paper with great interest (Hongladarom, 2011), and thoroughly enjoyed the discussion and contrasting viewpoints of Kant and Hume that were presented; however, as I read, I couldn’t help but feel that Hongladarom overly complicated the concepts of online vs. offline presence with such a detailed philosophical discussion. After all, rarely is it that those seeking to create a social media profile does so out of a conscious mental conflict between the person that they are and the person that they represent: such duality is, it seems to me, often the result of a mental conflict between who a person is and who a person would prefer to be perceived to be, and not itself the instigating factor. I had given very little thought, if any, to those who deliberately set up profiles with misleading or unrepresentative information, the purpose thereof notwithstanding. Naturally, I am (anecdotally) aware that many Facebook users use the platform to publicize their triumphs, achievements and the positive aspects of their lives, and according to NPR, exposure to such social media activity can lead to envy and negative emotions in the (passive) consumer of the activity (Brooks, 2016), but before reading this paper, it had not occurred to me that there would be a non-malicious reason for actively setting up profiles that are less than representative of the user to which it pertains.
Hongladarom’s account of life in a country in which lèse majesté and the lack of freedom of speech are ordinary components of everyday life resonated strongly: I, too, grew up in a country in which freedom of speech (and the press, as it happens) is quite as unthinkable. I emigrated from that country long before social media had become mainstream, and so I did not witness instances of my peers created deceptive profiles for the purposes of enjoying some measure of freedom of expression, but logic suggests that the phenomenon of creative and alternate profiles that is prevalent in Thailand must also be as prevalent in other countries. Hongladarom very clearly depicts the difference between online and offline personas in this summary: “The newly created persona, then, allows the person behind to say things in such a way that would not be possible if the person revealed who she really is to the world.”
As to the differences between my own online and offline personas… this is not an analysis that I find easy to undertake. As mentioned in last week’s discussion, a large part of my social media activity takes place within the boundaries of various social and peer groups. Out of a need to protect my own privacy and that of my nuclear family in the social media world at large, my public profile is limited to the occasional family photograph (with geolocation and other pertinent metadata scrubbed), weekend check-ins at local businesses that I wish to support (such as a number of very family-friendly breweries in the area) and public “Happy Birthday!” messages to my Facebook friends; I remain largely silent. I do not often comment on political articles or engage in debate or diatribe publicly. Within the various groups, I am quite a bit more vocal… perhaps because I enjoy some measure of anonymity. While I have met a number of women in my local mothers’ group, for example, I have not met the vast majority, and enjoy an almost paradoxical security in using this relative anonymity to be more vocal about my thoughts and feelings. I feel even more comfortable posting contrasting points of view in a group made up of fellow alumnae; a handful of the members of this group know me well, but the majority do not, but engage me in lively debate deliberately and enthusiastically. Those who know me in real life know that I speak my mind, have firm opinions and am very open to debate and discussion, and am not in the least bit afraid of being confrontational. I feel that, in much the same way as Hongladarom describes that members of Thai communities set up different profiles to leverage different viewpoints and different parts of themselves, I also leverage different parts of myself in these different groups. That members of these groups cannot see my posts or activity in other groups or even in my public profile (for the most part, at least, as the cross-overs are few) lends me precisely the sort of targeted, separate personalities and pseudo-profiles that, even if not created deliberately for the purpose, lends me the same type of protection that Thai community members actively seek. The anonymity and distance that social media platforms provide for their users now serve a similar function to the lèse majesté laws of countries in which freedom of speech is limited: practically anyone can be virtually attacked and publicly shamed for expressing a viewpoint, and though neither the subject not the object of such malice will be thrown into prison, social media bullying and harassment are very real phenomena (Caffrey, 2016).
Today’s technology impacts the creation of online identities in a number of ways. The most obvious example that comes to mind is the profile photograph: with sophisticated tools such as Photoshop and any number of quick-edit apps (I myself am not above using the “PerfectYouCam” app on my phone to smooth out bumps and rolls, and give myself a slightly sharper nose!), it is sublimely simple to craft a more aesthetically pleasing version of one’s favorite selfie. And so, the divergence of one’s online and offline personas begins. From there, any number of pleasing or self-enhancing tweaks can be made; if a user states on their “About” page that they attended a prestigious Ivy League school, who is to challenge that assertion? Technology makes it relatively easy to make such claims; to validate these claims would take far more effort than the average social media user would exert. Then, too, instances of the hacking of social media accounts are legion, so much so that Facebook has an entire Help section devoted to this topic (at https://www.facebook.com/help/131719720300233/), which makes it even harder to validate a social media profile.
It seems to me that maintaining an authentic, credible online presence is an ongoing challenge, especially when technology such as that previously described makes it relatively easy to present enhanced or downright deceptive versions of oneself.
References:
Brooks, J. (2016, September 7). Facebook And Mortality: Why Your Incessant Joy Gives Me The Blues. Retrieved from NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/09/07/492871024/facebook-and-mortality-why-your-incessant-joy-gives-me-the-blues
Cait Caffrey, S. P. (2016, January). Cyberbullying. Retrieved from Shapiro Library Research Starters: http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89138921&site=eds-live&scope=site
Hongladarom, S. (2011). Personal Identity and the Self in the Online and Offline World. Minds & Machines, 21(4), 533-548. doi:10.1007/s11023-011-9255-x