On the Internet today, your online presence, or rather your "Identity" as far as the Internet is concerned, is probably split up over several different sites. You likely have a Facebook, which contains all sorts of information about you. You may have Twitter, which broadcasts extremely up-to-date information about where you are, what you are doing, and perhaps what your thoughts are at the present moment. You may have Flickr, where people can get yet another view into your life through the lens of your camera. You might also have a blog, which has more detailed but slightly less up-to-date information about you and your life than Twitter.
Every one of these sites, depending on how you use them, contains little pieces of your identity as you've presented it on the Internet. I say presented because the design of your various profiles can probably be likened to the clothes someone wears in meatspace. Some people care enough to learn the ins and outs of how to design and implement a design that matches how they wish to present themselves to the world. Some people don't really care and so long as they have a page that serves the purpose that the site is designed to allow, they are happy. In meatspace, some people take great time and care with what they wear while some people are happy so long as their fleshy bodies are covered and they can get a burger at a restaurant without being arrested for indecency.
This all brings me back to this intriguing idea I mentioned earlier, which is to create a simple web page that serves as something of a road sign. This road sign (web page) points to all of the various pieces of your identity, your online presence, that you've littered across the Internet. In this way, all of the data that you've flung out across the Internet is centralized in a more meaningful way. This road sign is only useful to the people who care enough to have something to do with you, but it's great for your friends and for connecting with people you have befriended through the Internet.
All of these online identities are great because it allows you to participate in the thriving, ever changing and ever exciting world of the Internet in a more meaningful way. These identities give shape and meaning to the streaming bits that form text in response to other text left by others. It gives it context. But all of this has a serious downside.
The thought probably crossed your mind while you were crafting these various online profiles that every text box you fill in that profile creation screen is another piece of data about you that is now accessible to the world at large. Sure there are privacy settings, but here's the catch: the privacy settings stunt the identity you are trying to create and it's efficacy. The more private you are on the web, the less you get out of participating in its various circles. That isn't always true and I don't mean to set it as an absolute, but I do feel certain that the less context you give your side of the dialogue, the less meaningful it is. A statement from a user named Slokky32 with no other identifying characteristics doesn't carry the same weight as a statement from the same user with some added information, such as that Slokky32 is a grad student studying climate science at [insert prestigious university here]. Adding something about how much Slokky32 enjoys the Harry Potter movies might also humanize him/her a little bit, giving further context to his/her statements, making him/her more relatable, and perhaps a little less pretentious.
The problem is that the more information you present, the less privacy you have and the easier it is for would-be employers, schools and other people who might benefit from having more information about you, to find you. This is obviously dangerous for several reasons that I probably don't have to explain. Slokky32 might have looked like a great candidate on paper for some job later in life, but when they see her 10 page rant about her last employer and why her boss was a scum-sucking douchebag, they might reconsider. It might not even be something that serious. Maybe it's just some comments she made that portray her in a light that they don't see as a good fit for their company. I'm not going to bother going over pictures that might show up on Facebook of Slokky32 passed out the floor with marker on his face. If you have such pictures and they are easily searchable, you deserve to be unemployed.
Going back to the start of my post: while following this intriguing idea of creating my own "Road Sign" to bring all of the pieces of my Internet identity together into a more coherent whole, I've become more and more concerned with what that identity is. I've become more and more aware that what I do and say can be traced back to me and that in the future this could be dangerous. I want to make myself as approachable as possible. I want people to know WHO they are talking to, WHAT he does, WHY he does it, and then let them decide whether that person is worth their time to talk/listen to. But in doing that I'm giving up a lot of privacy that I might be better off hanging onto.
(Later thought: 3:55 PM) Another thing worth thinking about is the various other ways that information can be used against you. Advertising is an example. Facebook is not just a social networking site. In fact, it could be argued that social networking isn't even its main function. Facebook is a giant data monster, wrapping its tendrils around every piece of information it can sucker you into delivering it with the premise of allowing you to "connect" with your friends. But who do these connections really benefit? Do your friends, who likely know you fairly well, really need you to express your obsession with Tool? Isn't that something they are likely to already know? As for the various other people you've added on Facebook that may or may not be your friends, do they really CARE that you like Tool? Probably not. But that information DOES benefit anyone trying to sell you crap you likely don't need, and Facebook itself.
So, do the benefits of networking and making friends in cyberspace outweigh the costs to privacy?
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