Digital Identity Exercise
This weeks articles highlights the importance of Digital identity and the impact it can have on one’s personal and professional life. Within our learning pods, each of us completed the Digital Identity Exercise, where we privately sourced and identified our own social media content that we have either created or have had shared. Through this exercise, we gained more information regarding each persons perspective regarding digital presence. People have varying levels of digital presence — some maintain a larger digital footprint, while others choose to be more private . When it comes to the results of my exercise, my digital identity seems to very controlled. Other than my LinkedIn, none of my other social media platforms shows up from a simple Google search. It would be possible to find my digital presence by searching through the individual media platforms; however, my profiles are usually private, so they would need my approval for access. This aligns with my views, since I believe that having a more professional digital footprint is key to building a positive online reputation, which can result in greater trust in both personal/professional spheres.
Reflecting on the Articles and Videos
The two articles and the videos do an outstanding job describing what Digital Identity is as well as the importance it has on todays world. In short, a digital identity is typically defined as a relationship between a human and their digital presence. It involves the information distinguished from one person to another in online interactions. Digital identity can be viewed in different ways. For example, someone’s online accounts, social media profiles, email address or username/password, or even someones purchasing habits through e-commerce sites are various digital identities. Understanding the nature of digital identity is important in today’s world. By recognizing and actively managing these various forms of our digital identities, it can help us better navigate the digital realm responsibly and harness its potential for both personal and professional growth.
There are many ways that personal versus professional approaches to digital identity affect social media use. How you see yourself online (personally or professionally), significantly influences your engagement with online digital platforms. For personal engagement, people usually tend to utilize social media platforms to share more personal details of their lives. By sharing personal details on social media, it establishes a connection by letting friends and family get a glimpse into your life. This creates a shared understanding, which can strengthen your relationships. On the flip side, a more professional approach consists of strategically presenting yourself in a way that showcases your skills and achievements. It is important to strike a balance between personal and professional identities on social media, as oversharing personal information may impact one’s professional image, while maintaining a strictly professional presence may impact your relationship with friends/family. Therefore, people manage both their personal and professional digital identity by adjusting how they present themselves. Ultimately, this influences how they use social media and how it can impact their lives.
Digital identities converge in networked publics in a number of various way. The main way they converge is when individuals blend their online personas across various platforms. This creates a more united representation of themselves in the digital universe. Because of this convergence, there can be benefits as well as disadvantages associated with it. A possible benefit is it creates a sense of a connected community, allowing people to navigate different online environments while maintaining a constant identity. This can lead to increase collaboration as well as the exchange of knowledge. In terms of disadvantages, privacy and security stands up the tallest. As discussed in the article, ‘Identity-Making and Social Media ‘, social media platforms such as Twitter allow the creation of fake accounts. This increases the risk of impersonation and other security issues, which could negatively portray you, ruining your digital identity. Therefore, it is crucial to treat the digital environment with utmost care, so that you can absorb the benefits while keeping the negatives out the door.