To open up this new year, I would like to extend a discussion that got off to a good start in 2006-7: the new possibilities and challenges associated with the fact that we increasingly–whether we like it or not–have an online persona to project, or at the least protect. Kate got this ball rolling with her post, “Excuse me, sir, but your online persona is showing.”
I came across a closely related article in today’s New York Times, titled “Putting Your Best Cyberface Forward.”
The image above, lifted from the article, clearly communicates the main point. If you have the chance to read the piece you will find a couple of intriguing findings by social scientists studying online behavior patterns, but mostly confirmation of what you already know. Even the author of the article partially acknowledges this, comically noting,
“The scholars found it common for online daters to fudge their age or weight, or to post photographs that were five years old. Also, the world is round and the chemical symbol for water is H2O.”
However, even if the contents of the article don’t teach us loads, it is important to note that the article appears in the “Fashion & Style” section, not in “Technology”, speaking to the expansion of this issue far beyond the technical.
To wit:
Reply to Mikhail