#UOSM2008 Topic 2: Online identities, Pros and Cons.

Question: "Discuss the arguments for and against having more than one online identity".

Picture source: http://brandconfessions.com/profiles/blogs/5-tips-for-managing-your-social-media-identity

I personally don’t think that Licklider (1963) could imagine that his idea for connecting several computers to make it easier to pass scientific and military information will grow later into this enormous network called the Internet. Demanding grows in popularity of online activities has lead people to create their “digital identities”. However, what is this “Digital identity”? This term is used to describe personas that individuals use across social networks in which they are represented (Williams et al., 2010).  However, how smart is it to have your information be constantly available online and what are the pros and cons of this situation? Below you can find a list of both, my personal and public opinions on this question:

Pros:

• The first and the most important one is obviously the communication. Social networks allow people to communicate from anywhere to anyone, in any numbers.
• Let’s not forget about online identities created in LinkedIn, which helps a lot people find jobs, share knowledge and companies to advertise and promote themselves. One of my friends got his job offer via LinkedIn, the company found him itself.
• Real-time information sharing and News cycle speed have increased, you get news about others and the events much faster (Cosmato, 2013).

Picture source: http://gearpatrol.com/2009/06/17/be-a-better-man-in-30-days-day-16-know-how-to-manage-your-online-identity-image/

Cons:

• The face-to-face connection is losing its weight. I still do remember my first day in the UK, when I was coming back to my accommodation and there were two teenage girls in front of me, and they were going to say goodbye to each other. I was quite surprised to hear: “See you on Facebook” instead of “See you tomorrow/later”.
• Time-waster. As it can be understood from the name, the vast majority of people do use social networks wisely (Cosmato, 2013).
• Identity fraud. This can happen as anyone can create a false identity and pose as someone else (Ibraz, 2010).

Picture source: http://brandconfessions.com/profiles/blogs/5-tips-for-managing-your-social-media-identity

What is my opinion? This might sound strange to hear this from a young person who considers himself a “Digital Resident” of the Web and a person whose major is in Information Technology in Organisation, but I will be honest and say that I’m quite against putting your entire life online to be visible by others. Yes, online communication is good, it removes borders between countries and nations; Yes, it allows people to share their happiness and pain with others and Yes, those who are afraid to speak in public can have their freedom online to express their opinions as they want. However, all of these, and more, must be to some extend!

If my young cousin spends his whole time online and doesn't know who is Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, George Washington, Shakespeare, etc., this is not acceptable; if people spend more time online rather than with those who dedicated their lives to you (relatives, parents, etc.), this is not acceptable; if people know more about you than they should and can use this against you, this is not acceptable.

I saw this video below nearly one year ago and always used it as an argument when we debate with my friends on this topic. It does worth watching it. And I will just summarize with the last words from this video: “Your entire life is online, and it can be used against you. Be vigilant!”

And last but not least, as an IT person I would be happy to share information about some useful and free softwares and techniques that can help you remain anonymous on the Internet:

• ToR – The Union Router (https://www.torproject.org/), is basically a free software network that uses a set of relay nodes to hide the original source of the traffic (Murdoch & Danezis, 2005).
• Use anonymous VPN/Proxy service (http://www.hidemyass.com/), such as HideMyAss, which similarly to ToR will hide the source of the incoming data (Joel & Charlotta, 2010).
• And finally, spoof your IP source address, which in a more understandable way means changing your IP address .

REFERENCES

• Cosmato, D., 2013. Love to know social networking. [Online] Available at: http://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/Advantages_and_Disadvantages_of_Social_Networking [Accessed 22 February 2014].
• Ibraz, A., 2010. Fundamentals of Computing. [Online] Available at: http://mason.gmu.edu/~aibraz/disadvantages.html [Accessed 22 February 2014].
• Joel, P. & Charlotta, W., 20010. Network anonymity. Project. Sweden: Information Security Course Linköpings universitet.
• Murdoch, S.J. & Danezis, G., 2005. Low-cost traffic analysis of ToR. Security and Privacy, 1(1), pp.183-95.
• Williams, S., Fleming, S., Lundqvist, K. & Parslow, P., 2010. Understanding your digital identity. Learning Exchange, 1(1), pp.1-6.

#UOSM2008 Topic 1: Digital Visitors & Residents - Summary

                                Picture source: http://dial.myblog.arts.ac.uk2011/12/13/210

So, we have come to the end of the first topic in the module Living and Working on the Web (#UOSM2008). We were given a task to explain the concept of Digital “Visitor” and “Resident” based on our readings and personal online experience. Having read others blogs and comments for my own one there are few things that I need to clarify in order to summarize the topic:

1. First and the most significant one is that I should not mix up definitions as I did in my first paragraph with Prensky (2011) and White (2011), because I just thought that they can be used interchangeably. Apparently it isn't.
2. Secondly, as I have mentioned in my blog, the division of people into 'Residents' and 'Visitors' is not precise and there is a huge gap in the middle. And as one of my classmates (Kimberly) have mentioned in my comments: "this concept forms a continuum to which people can find themselves in between the two, and showing some attributes from each entity". To support this, I can give an example from an article I had pleasure to read and which was sent to me by one of my classmates (Jazmin). This was Horrigans (2007), which had this idea that people are divided into 10 groups according their level of activity online:

                                 
Picture Source: http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2007/PIP_ICT_Typology.pdf.pdf 

In conclusion, I'm still of the opinion that this concept is far too narrow and needs more groups, or even sub-groups to describe the variety of users online. Idea of Horrigans (2007) replicates much deeper insight of this concept (See the picture above).

Overall, this was my first blog, and I hope that people have enjoyed reading it, because I actually, enjoyed writing it :). Looking forward to see the next task.

#UOSM2008 Topic 1: Digital Visitors & Residents

Picture source: http://dial.myblog.arts.ac.uk2011/12/13/210

“Explain the concept of digital “visitors” and “residents” drawing upon your reading and your own online experiences to date in support of the points that you make”.

Because of the rapid growth of the technologies in the past few decades, people have been categorized into two groups. One group consists of people who were born in the digital age and were surrounded by the technologies, such as video games, emails, the Internet, social networks, etc. and are considered the “native speakers” of computers or “digital residents”. In contrast, the other group consists of people who have come to technology later in their life, normally people from the older generation (Prensky, 2001).

There are some clear differences between the groups (White et al., 2012):

Digital Visitors:

• They have defined goals or tasks when they are using technologies, especially the Internet.
• They are quite concerned about personal privacy issues, as they stay relatively anonymous and avoid creating a digital identity.
• For them, online social networking (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) is considered to be banal and time wasting.
• In their opinion, the Web is just a set of tools which can be used only for specific tasks, such as search and retrieve data (/information), communicate via emails, etc.

Digital Residents:

• They see the web as a place where all friends and colleagues gather together.
• Part of their life is spent online.
• They have profiles on various social networks and they feel themselves as a part of the community.
• The distinction between online and offline life is becoming more and more blur for them.

However, is this distinction between people precise and always true? Does it define how well and efficiently they use online sources? Definitely Not!  Data indicates that despite the fact that most of the people over 55 are made up of Visitors there are lots of examples of Residents in that among them. In the same manner, not every young person under 25 is a digital Citizen (White, 2008). The reason for these rule breaking is the fact that it is not important “what” you are using on the web, but “how” you are using it.

As an example in support of these exceptions from my personal life a good friend of mine is studying Computer Science, but he was surprised when I have introduced him well-known websites, such as scholar.google.com, dl.acm.org and ieeexplore.ieee.org for searching online articles and conference papers. At the same time, my parents are far from technologies, but they can easily access the Internet, purchase tickets for bus, planes and trains, book hotels and read news from websites and sources existence of which I don’t even know about.

To conclude, after a research on this topic, I have realised that we, the young generation, as a ‘Residents’ of the web have more advantages than ‘Visitors’, because we are familiar with the language of technologies around us. Our duty is to use these technologies as effectively as possible, because as was stated previously it doesn’t matter what do you use, it is how you are using it.