I was trying really hard to recall what life was like before the Internet. I was probably in Primary School then. I guess the most significant memory back then was that, life was more private. We mostly, could only interact with people when we saw them, or when we called them. Such direct contact usually made us more wary of what we said to people, and how we portrayed ourselves to them.
On the other hand, ever since the Internet was introduced into my life, everyone seemed more interconnected than before. We really had no time by ourselves anymore. After seeing your friends at school, you would then see them again online when you got back home. Perhaps, the most integral connection I have with the Internet would be my personal blog at Multiply.
With blogs, people are able to tell stories about themselves, share their opinions openly and interact with others online. Plus, the amazing thing about the computer is that you never get rejected for what you say. I guess the Internet serves as a place where you jot down things with ease; at the click of a button, your work is published on the World Wide Web.
It is therapeutic to release your thoughts online and have people view them. However, are we revealing too much of ourselves? The Internet gives no restraint to how much you want to talk about yourself. That is why people speak so freely, perhaps with the illusion of false security, or the illusion that being transparent, having nothing to hide, is the best. (Sullivan, 2006) As blogs rise in popularity, people’s identities portrayed on blogs are beginning to be an integral part of their real identities. We learnt previously – the Internet flourishes as a place with “conventional signals”. You do not necessarily need to possess a certain trait for you to talk about having it online. (Donath, 1996) However, when your identity is so tied up to what you write, there is the pressure of wanting to gain trust from people with regard to your expressions.
As mentioned by sociologist Thomas Mathiesen, we are in a world in which more and more citizens are subject
to the scrutiny of strangers – the Omnipticon (Rosen, 2004). That is why we often turn to the approach of authenticity. People behave differently when they know they are being watched (Sullivan, 2006). In order to appear trustworthy, we try to be as authentic about ourselves as we can. As expressed by Lionel Trilling, authenticity is that “instead of being honest with each other, individuals should be honest with themselves, and should have no compunction about directly exposing strangers to their most intimate emotions” (Rosen, 2004). Unlike previous traditional ways of relating to people with sincerity, we now turn to authenticity to gain trust. This is especially so when we interact so much online, where relational physical cues are absent. We would have to rely on those conventional signals to believe someone; in this case, authenticity. Sincerity requires that whatever is exposed must be true; authenticity requires that everything must be exposed as long as it is deeply felt (Rosen, 2004).
When I think about it, my blog is a form of personal branding. I have pictures and videos put up, as well as personal information about myself on my blog. I guess the Internet has given us a way of expressing ourselves as people down in words and pictures. However, such advantage of being able to talk about yourself so much has probably turned us into people especially concerned about our individuality. We want to stand out from others. In our attempt to seem indifferent to what we write, we write the intimate thoughts we have, as though we have nothing to hide. How is it we have tied so much of ourselves, and identity to what we put down?
We learnt in the “Principles of Persuasion” class, COM 231, that we inherently feel committed to remain constant in our behaviors especially when we have put down in words about our beliefs or thoughts. That is due to the tangibility of what we supposedly think. Maybe it just shows our character when we can do as what we say.
As for me, I face the pressure of being authentic as well, to remain credible. It just goes to show how the Internet has become so much of a part of our lives that our online identity has become just as important as our “offline” one.
Now, I try to limit revealing my information to just my friends. I guess this is how I maneuver my privacy in my blog. But I would admit that I reveal quite a lot to the public sphere nonetheless. It is my way of saying that we are so ignorant of the consequences, and yet so indifferent when we know about it.
References
Donath, J. S. (1996, November 12). Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. MIT Media Lab. Retrieved March 10, 2007, from http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html
Rosen, J. (2004, July 19). The Naked Crowd.
Sullivan, B. (2006, October 17). Privacy Lost: Does anybody care?. 2007 MSNBC Interactive. Retrieved March 10, 2007, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/
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