Who Are You Online?

This week in class we were assigned the task of “cyber-sleuthing” one of our peers.

While searching for one of the members of my group, I was able to find many of her social media accounts such as her twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts along with her online portfolio. Her social media accounts were fairly private and did not give away a lot of personal information, her portfolio was very professional, and would be a great way to be discovered by potential employers. Her online presence was very clean and she had nothing shameful to be found. The same can not be said for everyone.

The online would can be a very dangerous place for ones’ personal identity. For instance, Justine Sacco, who’s life was ruined by a tweet she had made without really thinking it through. Jon Ronson talks about what happened to her in his Ted Talk, and how one little tweet can escalate and change someone’s life.

It is scary to see how horrible someone can be treated and just how fast things spread in the online world. In the span of a matter of hours she was shamed, threatened, and even lost her job. All over something that happened online. Don’t get me wrong what she said was not okay, but the things said about her and the threats she received were also far from being okay.

Our digital identity can say so much about who we are as a person; it can also be a way to hide who we are. In the article Split Image, Kate Fagan talks about a young girl whose life seems perfect, when in reality she is suffering in silence. Online you can be anyone you want to be, you choose what you share, and what you keep to yourself. Like this young girl, many people display the glamorous side of life, making things seem as if they should be effortlessly perfect.

As professionals and as human beings we need to be careful about what we post online, and how we treat others online. Even though there is a screen between you and reality doesn’t make the person on the receiving end of the comments less real.