Blogs and Identities :: Web Individuality Privacy Internet Essays

Blogs and Identities When I think of an individual, I think of one person, and that person has one distinct identity. When I discovered that people whom blog change their identities, I thought it was strange and wondered why they do this. I first noticed this in the â€Å"Always and Forever† blog I have been observing. The couple in this blog do not use their real names. I understand that you might have to alter your personality a bit depending on where you are or whom you are with. For example, you would not swear if you were trying to impress your soon to be in-laws. When I talk about changing identity I am talking about using a totally different identity and many times they also change their personality. As Judith S. Donath states, â€Å"Identity plays a key role in virtual communities. In communication, which is the primary activity, knowing the identity of those with whom you communicate is essential for understanding and evaluating an interaction. Yet in the disembodied world of the virtual community, identity is also ambiguous. Many of the basic cues about personality and social role we are accustomed to in the physical world are absent. (â€Å"Identity and Deception†) Blogs and identity from society’s eyes One of the main reasons that I think people change their identity is because they feel as though they are inadequate in some part of their life. Maybe they do not have their dream job, or maybe they are not married and they think they should be. Anything can make a person feel as though they are not good enough. In today’s society there is the expectation that everyone should live by certain standard, and this could make someone feel very uncomfortable with who they really are. As Mead says, â€Å"This is particularly relevant to an interactionist perspective because the positions into which we fall (and their behavioural expectations, or roles) are reinforced not only by our own conceptions of "who I am," but also by the perceived conceptions of "who I ought to be" or a reflection upon what social positions others put us into ("taking the role of the other").† (Parents) Another thing is that they might be unsure about is their sexuality. They might want to become someone of the opposite sex in their blogs and see how it feels or how people react to them. As Sherry Turkle states, â€Å"even a assumed male persona to experience for herself the Net’s gender bending abilities.