During our class sessions this week, we covered the topic of online identities, including the advantages vs. the disadvantages and it's limitations or lack thereof.
As someone who isn't a frequent online social media user ( with the exception of YouTube and XBOX Live), I have to start off by saying that I do feel that people have some sense of being more comfortable saying things over the internet as opposed to saying it to someone in person. I can speak from experience where an opponent may have gotten the best of me on a match up on a XBOX game, and then proceeded to tell me that they would do the same to me in person. Me, being the curious person I am, went on to look at their profile, with avatar and biography and location all available mind you, only to see that they were a 13 year old boy from a different country. I'm not saying I'm the most menacing looking person by any means, but I'm pretty sure a 13 year old boy wouldn't just walk up to me and tell me how easily he's gonna kick my ass up and down the street. For someone like me, things like that are comical though, because I feel that if you have to be a tough guy or gal online, then you must really not be that tough.
Another aspect of the online identities we touched on was the authenticity of the person people put online. My thought on this is don't put anything online that you don't want people to eventually see, because no one is safe from the almighty paper trail. I don't care if it's sexting photos, discriminating notes, private messages or whatever you choose, if it's on the internet, eventually someone will see it. I mean just look at the people Chris Matthews used to catch of his "Predator" show. If you want to do dumb things, stay off the internet is the best advice I can give. So I feel that everyone hides something some of the time when online, just like they do in real life.
