Recently I have got an assignment
for Social Media and Society class to find out what my online identity is. At a
first glance the task seems pretty easy. Basically you are supposed to type in
your “Name Surname” in google and then look through the results you’ll get. Normally
there supposed to be a bunch of links containing your personal information.
There are also could be images and videos of you. Most of people would
certainly see links to their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts as well
as other social media tools on a first page. However, that would only work if
you have always exposed your personal information on the web. My case is
different.
I was born in Russia where we
don’t really use Facebook that much, instead there is a similar web site called
“Vkontakte”.The name of the website translates to something like “stay
connected”. It is so popular amongst
Russians for several reasons. First of all, it gives you access to a lot of
content such as movies and TV-shows, music and so on. Let’s not touch the legal
aspect of this issue, because it would be enough talk for another blog posting.
The website also has so-called communities where people can discuss topics they
are interested in or post pictures of their art works to get others opinions on
them and so on. Considering the following it’s not a surprise I didn’t have a
Facebook account till I turned 18.
That time I went to Italy and met
a lot of local people who were not familiar with the Russian social network.
After that I had to create a Facebook account to stay in touch with them.
However, I didn’t want to use my real surname.
I had never done it before. It always made me feel uncomfortable to
expose my personal information to strangers. So I decided to use my
grandmother’s surname instead. Until the
time I moved to Canada I didn’t want to share anything personal: my birth date,
my interests and likes, anything related to my personal life. . I was basically
the complete opposite of a person that Jennifer Golbeck describes in her
article “Why We Overshare Online”. The only exclusion I made was for pictures,
since I had a lot and didn’t mind showing off a little.
This January I’ve started an
online course about the social media and its impact on society. The more I’ve
been discovering how useful social media is in real life, the more my views
been changing. I started sharing things I’m interested and even updating statuses
on Facebook. I also use my Instagram account more often now. I actually enjoy
it, since it has helped me to find out some of my friends are way more
like-minded with me than I thought before. The biggest step I made was when I
finally changed the surname on my Facebook profile to the real one. I started
looking for a job and thought my potential employer might want to check my
Facebook profile. I think this is a great example how important the online
identity is today. Even a person like me who’s very conservative about privacy
has to adapt her views in order to do something as essential as getting a job.
Since the change is really fresh,
my Facebook profile doesn’t come up on the first page if I search for my “Name
Surname”. The same situation is with my Instagram where I don’t even have any
reference to my name or surname. I don’t have a Twitter, Tumbler or any other
social network accounts. It all comes to one simple conclusion. When I googled
my “Name Surname” to find out what my online identity actually is nothing
related to me came out. It was literally nothing, neither on the first page nor
on the tenth. No videos or images of me.
I have mixed feelings about the
absence of my online identity linked to my name. On one hand this is what I
wanted. There is nothing linked to my personal information that could disturb
my privacy in any way. On the other hand I might miss some chances to improve
my life while hiding my online presence. I think the opportunities that the
right online image provides are overbalancing the negative aspect of it.
Therefore I plan to take an effort to build up an online image I would be proud
of. Something I would want to show up when somebody searches for me.
References
Golbeck, J. (2014, October 15).
Why we overshare online. [blog post]. Retrieved from
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201410/why-we-overshare-online