Exploring my multiple digital identities
This week's readings were focused on connectivism and digital identities. I decided to write about the article by Bon Stewart called “ Digital identities: Six Key Selves of Networked Publics.” Stewart extends the definition of digital identities beyond the traditional concept. Generally speaking, our digital identity is basically any online personal data that can be traced back to us, our digital life. Stewart saw vast correlations between our digital identities and offline selves, in part because she doesn’t think they’re separate. She pointed our “six key selves of networked publics,” namely:
Our Performative or Public Self – the self when we publish something online and share it
Our Quantified – or Articulated – Self – the self which is aware of its connections to others, the one who wants to have many followers or get many likes!
Our Participatory Self – the self that produces and absorbs what my online network and friends create and share.
Our Asynchronous Self – the self that prefers to work undistracted
Our PolySocial – or Augmented Reality – Self – the self that navigates together our physical world and our digital world
Neo-Liberal, Branded Self – the self that wants to establish a personal brand (marketing ourselves)
These six selves are not separate selves. They are more facet of selves.
Reflecting on this article, I have pondered how many digital identities I have. I believe I have multiple identities in the online world, and each one of them is very important and manages a different aspect of my life. For instance, my student digital identity handles various parts of my academic life; my personal digital identity manages my family network, and so on. And many times I combine these facets of my digital self. I found that my digital identities are my language self, mother, and graduate student self.
My language self
There are two versions of myself online concerning the language that I use
My English online identity: which manages my academic and work life. I have many applications where I only write in English, such as slack, canvas, google drive, box, and more. I even create email accounts dedicated only to this facet of myself.
My Spanish online identity: Spanish is my native language. My Spanish identity is less extensive than my English identity. I mostly used this Spanish self to be connected with family and friends. My posts and creations are short and informal.
My mother self
My online identity of being a mom was extensive several years ago when my kids were small. Now that they have grown up and I have applied many strategies on natural motherhood, I produce and consume less information about it.
My graduate student self
My online identity as a graduate student is open. I have multiple professional sites online, such as a Linkedln profile, a website, a blog, a Twitter account, and my portfolio. I decided to separate my professional life from my personal life.
I love the wealth of knowledge and exposure to interchange ideas online and the connections with people that give the online experience the most meaning. I love my multiple identities and sometimes like to interact and merge them. I’m learning to manage them sensibly. I’m comfortable saying that I am always this simple me.
I find this really interesting and I appreciate you sharing your different identities. I know this might sound silly, but I had never thought about having a different self when it came to language speaking, you separated your English self and your Spanish self. I found that interesting, and I also enjoyed reading about your other identities. Thank you for sharing.
I love your discussion of your various identities. It is sometimes hard to see how our identities can clash and cause tension between themselves. It sounds like you are striving to embrace yours and articulating them will help you see the ways to work with each. I hope I can do something similar to what you have described.
Gloria, your post helped me to know you better as you described your digital identities! I like how you said about these identities that "each one of them is very important and manages a different aspect of my life." I hadn't thought of that as I read the Stewart article.
Such a wonderful outline of all of your identities. Embracing each one and then combining them into a whole person can often be a challenge especially as they conflict with each other. There are also certainly some ethics involved here in that you can't always represent one aspect in full depending on what digital context you are interacting with.