"Who am I?" --- COM125: Assignment #6

Before we get into what an online identity is, let’s first define the term identity
According to Wikipedia, identity is “a term used to describe an individual's comprehension of him or herself as a discrete, separate entity.”

Online identity is a social identity that networks users establish in online communities. Many of us if not all, can relate to having an online identity. There are so many social networks out there like Myspace, Facebook, and Friendster (to name just a few); that people are a part of. In Judith DONATH’s article she also mentions that there are many online communities out there that define who people are.

But how do we define who we are?

As Donath expressed in his article, emails are one of the major ways in which one can be identified. This is what stuck out to me the most because EVERYONE has an email. Just by looking at their email address, you can tell what online community that person is a part of. For example, there are those who have their addresses ending in ‘gmail.com.’ This can link someone as being a part of the Google community. This person has access to all the different features that Google offers; like blogs, forums, personal websites, etc.

Another example of identifying someone through their email is if they have an address ending in ‘.edu.’ Just from this alone you can tell that this person belongs to an educational community. This person can either be a student, a professor, or a staff member at this particular school.

So what do I identify with?

An online community that I belong to, is Myspace. Myspace is a site that is used worldwide. People can create their own identities through Myspace by creating their own personal profiles. This helps to identify one person from another. It is a way to create yourself according to how you want people to see you. Unfortunately, sometimes you are not getting who a person REALLY is by looking at their profile, but that’s the risk you take in trusting what they put out there.

Myspace is also a forum that people have used to stay connected with family and friends, old and new. It’s a community in which people interact with strangers to form brand new relationships. They use it to meet future partners, and to even just make new friends.

Myspace has many unique features. Just to name a few, there’s an email system, a comment box (where you can say things to people and it is seen on their profiles), a photo album, a box that lets you update your mood for a given time, and it even allows you to play songs on your profile. All of these things put together can define who you are. You have the choice to reveal yourself physically through photos, let people know how you’re feeling, and even show people the type of songs that you like.

But what happens when you show too much on your profile?

People form reputations from the things that they post on their personal profiles. For example, I personally do not want people to know too much about me at all so I limit the pictures I put up, and information that I reveal about myself. There is also a privacy setting that only allows those people that I’m friends with to access my page. I don’t allow people to access my personal email, my phone number, or my address as well; but some people do.
To be honest I wonder why people do that, but to each is own.

In my profile I also include APPROPRIATE pictures of myself, my family, and my friends. I don’t reveal any part of myself at all (if you know what I mean); and some people do. In my opinion, this is what creates bad reputations for people. A lot of times with Myspace, there are kids under 18 posing as 18-21 year-olds. They also post very revealing and inappropriate pictures of themselves. This gives people the wrong impression and sometimes it even leads to sexual harassment. Adults get the wrong idea about these young kids and tend to approach them believing that they are of age, when in reality they are not. These children under 18 years old are giving themselves a false identity. Unfortunately, as I stated above, you can never be sure about who’s being truthful and who’s not.

Something else that can be scary!

Recently, there have been many people hacking into Myspace profiles. There are those people that have nothing better to do than steal people’s names and passwords to assume their identity. For example, hackers send mass emails or comments to other Myspace users about websites that contain viruses. There have also been cases where hackers add, eliminate, or change information on other people’s profiles.
And why do they do this…I do not know.

As common as these online communities have become, it’s scary to think that the people who are part of them may not REALLY be who they say they are. In my opinion, your identity is what you reveal to other people around you. Sadly, sometimes people lie and have to assume other identities; but we’d like to hope that who people say they are on these sites, are really them.
These are the risks we take in trusting people.

References:

• Donnah, Judith . (1996, November). Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. Retrieved October 4, 2007, from http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_identity
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_%28social_science%29
• http://www.myspace.com/
• http://www.google.com/