Managing Identities: Part One

October 13th, 2008 | by admin |

It was decided when we started the small worlds project that those involved would create an alternative twitter identity from that they were currently using day-to-day. When I set up @jennifermjones - it got us reflecting on how separate twitter identities would be managed practically (to come shortly). In particular, it could me thinking about my own online identity management and why it would be beneficial for myself to separate my online accounts from each other.

Background:

I’ll use my own Internet presence as an example:

At 23-and-11-months, I’m probably part of the last generation to remember a time without the Internet being commonplace in our day to day lives - along with the fact that I’ve grown up online - leaving a trail of teenage angst and misguided opinions strewn across the online social landscape. We had to learn about context from experience (and growing up!) , for example, public discussion (read:arguments) on BBS forums were moved to locked, friends only livejournals - where me and a bunch of friends all learnt how much is too much to share amongst strangers. I’ve had people misunderstood the context of particular websites and call me out (offline) about things in ridiculously embarrassing situations - situations, when I originally wrote a blog entry, did not expect for these posts to surfaced on google - or infact be read by anyone other than the other sociopathic teenage geeks like myself. I, and many others that I knew, learnt a set of BIG lessons regarding confidentiality. 

However, despite a history of nearly 7 years using the same username- I still use the nick “caffeinebomb” for most of my online stuff. For example, If you could be bothered googling it- you’ll find a rather cringe-worthy display of forum posts from a website called altnation.com, a glasgow based alternative community, which I’ve been a member of since 2002. This nests within all my gmail, wordpress, twitter and delicious accounts.

In the past 2 years, I’ve been more aware of my online identities and regularly purge and tidy up what is out there that represents me online (especially when I went ahead and did a MA in New Media!) - however altnation.com does not allow me to delete any posts as (I believe..) they like their forums to be searchable and if you start allowing accounts to be deleted, you start to lose the original essence of conversations.

So there is 5 years of online conversations, banter, flirting, arguments, making up -  most of the stuff discussed trivial, the emotion behind the text all but dissolved, sitting online and I’m not able to go and remove myself from it. Even then, do I want to remove it? Yeah, some of the stuff that is on there is so “of the moment” that I can barely remember writing it - and perhaps is a bit too honest (talk of drinking, swearing and other not very nice, potentially incriminating behavior) - and perhaps a lot of it I feel no attachment to anymore (teenage dramas, gossip and social experiments gone wrong) - but I can’t help but feel that a lot of it relates directly to the life-streaming and twittering that we get up to today, where a lot of it is streaming by so quickly, do we even care that we are sharing so much of ourselves anymore.

I also see a whole new wave of people who were never online before - they are all coming to terms with the sort of things we were getting to grips with 5-10 years ago (my generation anyway!) The things we had in common back then was a shared love for mucking about on a computer - now people don’t need to know that stuff now to get online. Now additional to online forums - you’ve got an extensive range of social networking websites, all of which  displaying the same show of angst, drama, love etc that you saw on these original places to begin with. People are experimenting with their online identities, making mistakes, adding and removing elements of their profiles - they are observing what their peers are doing and adapting accordingly. 

So how do we manage identities? 

Well, until recently, I was under the impression that I had to stick with the username I had and work with it - be aware of what I was sharing online and aim to bear responsibility for anything that may be deemed inappropriate by those who perhaps do not understand the purpose of different websites. I think I felt this way because I was unsure who my “audience” was - and - I am used to having to explain (or cover up) relentlessly my “secret” life online. Now I’ve been asked to take up a second identity (jennifermjones - wow, my actual name - something that used to be a bit of a taboo on some communities of the past) - it’s got me thinking about why I actually need a username like caffeinebomb in the first place.

Perhaps caffeinebomb represents the web 1.0 (yuk!) element of my online life - where you write yourself into being, where I wasn’t connecting to the people I already knew, I was experimenting with my own identity and meeting new people online. I didn’t feel I needed to be particularly a cautious about what I was putting on the web as I saw a firm distinction between online and offline. It was when these two “identities” collided that I experienced problems (embarrassment mainly) because I didn’t expect the people who knew me offline to be online (and to begin with, they weren’t!) You almost never put your real name online - whereas now people demand a real name to confirm identity (see Facebook.) 

Now, I continue to use my caffeinebomb identity, more than ever before these days. It is my main email address (but I do have a “professional” email address that I use to send emails to people who might not appreciate my teenage wildhearts obsession) I used to worry about the links to old forums that are still visible from the google-sphere. Now, I don’t worry too much - for I think as people begin to become more savvy to SNS, they’ll start noticing their own distinct trail and they’ll be a mutual awareness to the past - and a greater understanding of the importance of date, time and essentially context of what was written. 

However, I do think it is important for me to begin to work on my JenniferMJones identity. It is this identity that is going to carry my Ph.D., which will represent my work and will be used during employment and professional duties. Part of this is me coming to terms with my own knowledge and responsibility and part of this is about gaining the confidence to represent myself online. This all bottles down to a general awareness of my “audience” (even if my audience is only 1 person..) - and being clear about what is needing to be conveyed. 

I think, just like real life, these two (or more) online identities can exist synchronously. That cannot be denied - but the ways in which we manage these multiple identities -in an environment which is notoriously fluid and requires transparency and openness for it to thrive - is something that needs to be explored further. We shouldn’t be scared to share, but we need to be aware of who is watching.

Tomorrow I’m going to look at the practical ways I’ve been managing different accounts (yet still feeling a tad overwhelmed) - does anyone have anything to add?

Viewing 7 Comments

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    Great post, Jennifer. I've often felt concious about what I write in my blog and share with the world, and although there's much that I cringe at were I to read it today, I feel that having the freedom to allow yourself personal expression and creativity is much more important, no matter the consequences. I'm not saying you shouldn't be careful with what you say, I simply suggest that any action you take shouldn't be at the cost of stifling your own unique view of the world. This cartoon says it better than I ever could:

    http://www.xkcd.com/137/

    I'm looking forward to tomorrow's post!
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    Great cartoon! So very true...

    I'm fascinated by the neurosis of online identities - there is always a struggle between me wanting to write exactly how I am feeling (because it is me) - e.g. if I am angry about something - and worrying about it being seen by somebody and taken the wrong way. HOWEVER, I have always said that I wouldn't want to work for anybody that thought that way anyway because it would completely defeat the purpose. Who knows?

    I guess we are all learning about expressing ourselves - not a new concept. I think I am better online than I am offline - where I have absolutely no control sometimes! :-P

    - Jay Jay
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    Interesting post, and one which I agree with. My first "blogs" were completely public, no-holds spared teenage diaries (well, this was the late '90s, who knew better??) but after being burned on those I graduated to locking everything away. It's only very recently I've been happy to see my real name attached to my public internet presence (and I'll deny all knowledge of LiveJournal), but now I'm quite pleased to be a Google hit for myself.
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    Yeah, I hear ye!

    Luckily I always used to purge and delete livejournals (make them private so I can cringe) but I think of the sort of stuff I used to write, without question, because I was writing into a community of similar people. Anyone outside that community struggled to understand why you would do such a thing - but I think alot of it has to do with context.

    I remember an ex read my friends only blog and slagged me off for putting that sort of information online - it was never written with the intention of being public and I trusted everyone who could see it (About 4-5) - he went into my account by accident and read everything (including private entries) Drama Llama - but you are kinda asking for it if you read something that isn't intended for yourself. I would consider that sort of thing along the same lines of reading private emails.

    However, back to my point, I don't see anything particularly wrong about how Livejournal works (I love the ladies loo community, for example) - but it is about adopting usernames and being aware of who can read what. I avoid updating my livejournal and have done for about 3 years but I still love reading entries because I am fascinated by the support networks there. It is lovely to see a place online where people feel comfortable to seek advice and discuss things that they may not be comfortable talking about in real life.

    - Jay Jay
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    I've used a number of different nicks over the years for a number of different forums, social networking sites, and the like. Recently the rest have fallen away, leaving only the apparent victor, andyvglnt. It's a tag I should perhaps be more careful with.

    What I think is perhaps more interesting than the privacy issues thrown up by this, is the way in which facebook and the like allow you to control the privacy settings on your own page, and your own uploaded content, yet only offer limited control over your name and likeness in content uploaded by others. Users who search for my name on facebook would, ideally, only find my picture, my network, and a link to message me. As it is, they are offered links to profiles of other users who have chosen to include quotes, from conversations online or off, attributed to me, in their profiles. There is no way for me to tell, short of asking them outright, what their privacy settings are, because they're my friends so I can see their pages anyway. This offers obvious questions about the much reported practise of prospective employers scoping out the online presence of job applicants before offering them a position. I can protect myself, but it takes a group effort to offer real privacy in the connected world.
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    You've brought up several interesting points Andy - I found that during my dissertation focus groups, one of the biggest concerns about online identity management was the ability for others to upload content on the users behalf.

    However, one of the biggest things is that people are thinking about it - they are organising their friends lists and restricting access to content. Which I find very interesting indeed!
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    Interesting post and very relevant to those of us involved in the Small Worlds project, as I think we are all struggling with online identities.

    Like you, I have work identities that are linked to my real name, and scoial/creative identities that are linked to another username but it does get confusing when the two sometimes overlap!

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