Intro to Identity, Privacy and Safety

I find it very interesting how people choose to form their identities, and how others' interpretation of our identities likewise shapes us.

Social networks are a prime example of this. With your profile, you choose which aspects of your personality you want to develop and how you want to relate to others. Inasmuch as you’re portraying yourself, you are also trying to know yourself. You upload of photos of how you think you look your best, and seek reinforcement from others. You want them to say, “Yes, this is you, and you’re wonderful.” It can definitely feed your desire for validation. You want to post things that are interesting and engaging, but a lot of times surface level and predictable. It’s really easy to be liked when there are few visible things to dislike. Naturally, there are always the exceptions: The people who want to be edgy and controversial, and it’s easy to pick them out, making them predictable as well. Often these people will find a community who will encourage them to be controversial or at least think for themselves. You can choose your friends in these networks, and you can also deeply study the lives of other people, and glean from parts of their personality. The funniest part about it, is how nobody really knows who all is seeing what about them. People make jokes about Facebook stalking, but there are a lot of people that I don’t really know that well, but I find that I know an awful lot about. It definitely brings me to wonder who knows what about me. In ways, social networks can bring out you in the rawest form, and in others they can shield you as you present yourself in ways that you’ve determined other people would desire.

A more intense level of this is online discussion groups. These are often made up of people who relatively or completely unfamiliar with one another. The discussions often tend toward a certain topic or direction, and ultimately bring out the best and worst out of the participants. As a person chooses to identify with their opinion, it becomes who they are to those engaging in discussion. Even if, in reality, the topic is only a fragment of their life, there is a level of commitment that comes with forming an opinion, and often you speak more strongly of it than you feel. I find it funny how the more a conversation develops, the stricter the boundaries between various sides become, and the more defensive each person becomes as they seek to prove themselves (not just their opinion) to be correct and justifiable. This is an interesting development, because I feel that in most cases, it’s likely that the participants who are so adamant truly do nothing of the issues but talk about them. However, in that arena, a person will establish their identity on the basis of their particular ideas or opinions, and others will establish their interpretation of that person and have their own perspective of who that person is, particularly as they find themselves agreeing or disagreeing with the actual substance of their ideas or the person’s presumed character through their expression of ideas. This is even heightened with the characteristic anonymity of the discussion groups. You would likely present yourself differently were it among your coworkers or your friends or your weekly social club. There is a freedom and protection with being unknown, because the other participants don’t need to like you or validate you at the end of the day. Often you will find your friends and enemies, alike, as you engage in discussion, but if it’s seemingly you against the world, then you can walk away and engage in real life completely separate of such confrontation.