Your Online Identity

My blog this week was inspired by the Online Identity lecture. I decided to review two articles because I felt that they were both important to online identity.

 The first article is titled " Taking Control of Your Online Identity". I found this article very relevant and interesting because I feel that as a younger generation we don’t fully grasp how important our online identity’s are or have the potential to be. People can tell a lot about a person by looking at their social media sites which is probably why sites like LinkedIn are used by employers. While I think being too focused on online presence and identity can create an element of hysteria, I do think being conscious of your online identity and presence if healthy and important. The article stresses the importance of a positive first impression threw online identity via social media. It take seven seconds for someone to form a first impression of you. The power of that first impression, at the right moment, with the right person, is immeasurable. It could lead to a new colleagues, creative projects or beautiful relationships. The author of the article also questions translating the perfection of a real life first impression to the digital world. In my opinion, making a positive online first impression can be hard because you never know who is viewing your profile, but if you stay positive and respectful you will better your chances of having a great first impression.  

The second article, “Stop Trolls Stealing and Abusing Your Online Identity”, was very interesting because I actually know people who have fallen victim to people stealing their identity to make fake pages on social networks like Twitter and Instagram. It's kind of scary and creepy when you think about it and I appreciate this article for trying to offer ways you can protect yourselves. The article goes on to explain that week privacy settings and professional trolls have been the reason why so many people are being people have been the victim of online identity theft. But while online identity theft is not 100% preventable, there are ways to make professional trollers have a hard time stealing your identity. One way that was listed a few times for various social media sites was removing your location to protect your identity. Having locations settings on gives trollers an insight to where you live, work, and socialize, which is an advantage for trolling. Before reading this article I never really thought about how something as simple as sharing your location with your friends and followers could play such a huge part in someone stealing your personal identity. That really does create an element of hysteria for me. The pleasure and luxury of being able to update your friends on where you are (sometimes to make them jealous) has now become a feature that could result into something really terrifying and unfortunate. It’s discouraging that you can work so hard in perfecting your online impression and in seconds someone can steal that away from you.

Article 1: Taking control of your online identity

Article 2: Stop trolls stealing and abusing your online identity