What is Digital Identity?

To describe a digital identity is to describe one’s passions, feelings, and characteristics within a digital world. This is akin to an online personality of sorts. Like a real identity though, your digital identity is shaped by those that view it. This can lead to misconceptions, but also many opportunities to connect with people of similar interests.

 

How do personal vs. professional approaches to digital identity affect social media use?

A personal approach to digital identity would focus more on social media applications such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Reddit. This allows for any personal interests to be followed in any state between total personal recognition and complete anonymity, giving a private individual total control of what they want to see, as well as who they want to view their posts. Personal social media interaction is also much more casual, allowing many freedoms of speech often avoided in the workplace.

In contrast, a professional approach to digital identity would focus more on applications such as Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, where e-commerce thrives, and products can be advertised and sold without ever leaving the application. These applications have launched countless multi-million-dollar businesses, but there are some drawbacks (dependent on privacy). For example, it is borderline useless to have a private profile for a company wanting to sell on Instagram, for example: no potential customers would be able to view your products without your individual permission. Although, this means that the company owner/spokesman (depending on size) has to put themselves out there and attempt to advertise on a personal level. Finally, if someone has a professional Instagram account, care must be taken to ensure that values shared align with company values, and all posts and comments made are taken in a positive manner by everyone viewing in order to reflect well on the company.

 

How do digital identities converge in networked publics – what are the impacts and/or benefits?

Digital identity converges with networked publics in social media environments to communicate and share information with others. Benefits can come in many forms, including personal communication, learning from a distance, and professional reputation building for future employment opportunities. However, all of these examples of use carry one major downfall: lack of privacy. This has been a hot topic for Facebook Inc., which controls Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and many other applications. Not only do they keep records of your searches for ad preferences, they actually use your photos for facial recognition software advancements among other things

 

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