Every time I wander down the path of real versus digital
life, I am reminded of my own journey over the past 18 years or so. I am also
reminded of how those two lives, real and digital -- once so distinct, now seem
to converge. Part of that convergence has to do with the way people use
technology now, while some aspects rely on the push by certain service providers
to have all online profiles under the users' real names. Is that good? Bad? Or
is it just the evolution of technology.
In the Wild West days of the World Wide Web, everybody
wanted to be somebody else. For whatever reason, we all valued our privacy. We
knew the web was filled with cyber stalkers, perverts, identity thieves, and
various other unsavory creatures. So people chose "handles" or nicknames
for their online profiles. Some people used the same handle for all their
profiles while other people chose to project a different image on different
sites.
Over the years, I have had various online handles. Most of
them have been named after cars. Usually, the handle I chose depended on my
purpose for a particular site. If I was there to be friendly and sociable, I
used a handle I cared about and identified with. If I was at the site to be a troll
(an obnoxious poster), I used a handle that represented my purpose and, I
hoped, would not link back to me. But that was the beauty of the early web –
you could hide behind an assumed identity. You could make up a profile and give
it a persona that represented the type of person you always dreamed of being.
Or you could be a troll and nobody would be any wiser.
Of course, that troll part was (and still is) a bit
problematic. Acting under a pseudonym seemed to embolden people. That became
especially apparent in certain discussion forums and in the commenting sections
of news stories. Some people would say whatever came to mind, regardless of how
cruel or inconsiderate it was. It seemed as though the ability to remain
anonymous overcame the restraint that most of us would show in a face-to-face
conversation. Civil conversation was abandoned. As a result, some sites have taken
steps to move away from anonymous profiles. Facebook, Google+, and other
services now require users to register under their given names and not a
pseudonym. Certain news sites now
require commentators to use their Facebook profiles to post comments on news
stories. Whether the move is or will be successful is yet to be seen. If recent
observations in Korea are any indication, the use of real names does little to
reduce aggressive behavior online (Ferenstein, 2012). So while we are busy
becoming our real selves online, is it possible that we will one day revert
back to our assumed identities? And is our "real self" online even
the same as our real self in person?
I often say that my online self is more interesting than my
real self. Online, even though anonymity is not what it used to be, we still
have the ability to be funnier or friendlier or wittier than we are in person.
Given time to think up a comeback or Google something, we look much better
online than when we are stammering in person, struggling to find the right
words or grasping to remember what some pundit said on the news last night. We
have the chance to become that "techne-mentor" Ito et al. (2010)
describe.
If you consider what Ito et al. (2010) found in their study
of youth culture and media ecologies, that the use of online media is often an
integral part of real life, it is really not feasible to return to the Wild
West days of the web. We really cannot go back and become anonymous again; we
can't be trolls, or pirates, or mermaids, or Jedi knights. But maybe we can be
better versions of ourselves – something to live up to.
References
Ferenstein, G. (2012, July 29). Surprisingly good evidence
that real name policies fail to improve comments. AoL Tech. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-that-real-name-policies-fail-to-improve-comments/
Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittani, M., boyd, d., Cody, R.,
Herr-Stephenson, B., … Tripp, L. (2010). Hanging
out, messing around, and geeking out. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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