Online Personalities in CyberSpace

The inspiration for this post was the brief discusion with my daughter who approached me before she opened an account on Facebook. Like most cautious parents, we gave her a brief insight into the netizens and the identity game on many social networks.

Who is the peron you are interacting with in cyberspace?

One of the interesting things about the internet is the opportunity if offers people to present themselves in different moods, auras and characters. ‘Self Branding’ is the name of the game!

Users alter their styles by changing their age, history, personality, physical appearance, and even gender. The usernames they choose, the details they do or don’t indicate about themselves, the information presented on their personal web page, the persona or avatar they assume in an online community – all are important aspects of how people manage their identity in cyberspace.

Identity is a very complex aspect of human nature. Here are a few highly relevant factors that are useful in identifying who you think you are in cyberspace with:

1. Different Identities for different hats: Every person has different sides to personalities. CyberSpace allows people to present themselves in different ‘avatars’. A person may like to emphasize his musician qualities more, where as he may be atop executive and a ell known banker on dalal street. Internet allows people to present themselves in areas which they feel they need to associate with more than what they are actually known for.

2. There is a mathematical value behind every communication: The various environments and styles of communication of every person actually reflects his value system. Be it the nature of his response to a particular comment or his choic to remain silent on a debatable issue. We can sum up the inferences mathematically as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’.

3. Heaven Or Earth: The environments in which we communicate in cyberspace fall in various levels between reality and fantasy. You have users who are ‘on earth’ when they communicate and you also have users who are ‘in heaven’ when they communicate. One needs to understand the reason behind being in that level and isolate the reality from the hype.

4. The real motives: How people decide to present themselves in cyberspace isn’t always a purely conscious choice. Some aspects of their identities are always hidden below the surface. Covert wishes and inclinations leak out in roundabout or disguised ways without our even knowing it. The leaks depend on the degree to which they are consciously aware of and control their identity in cyberspace. Striving in cyberspace to be a “better” person also requires at least some conscious awareness of where one is headed. Many resist any self-insight and live under the illusion that they are in control of themselves.

5. Textual, Verbal or Visual: We express our identity in the clothes we wear, in our body language, through our careers and hobbies. These are the media through which we communicate who we are. Similarly, in cyberspace, people choose a specific media to express themselves. Some people rely on text communication. Then there are people who prefer visual mode like avatars, graphics etc. Some people prefer synchronous communication – like chat – which reflects the spontaneous, free-form, witty, and temporally “present” self. There are many who prefer message boards and e-mail.

We thus have personalities wanting to show and not receive too much by using web cams or creating web pages; to receive and not show too much by lurking or web browsing; and still others who want to dive into highly interactive social environments where both showing and receiving thrive. The choice of media chosen can give some clues to the extent to which a person presents a real or imaginary self.

The study of identity management in cyberspace has explained many trends. Online anonmity and freedom of access encourages antisocial personalities. People use the access to a numerous relationships as a means to gain an admiring audience. Some tend to isolate their cyberspace life from their real lives. Some tend to engage in the creation of multiple and distinct online identities.

While I attempted to explain the basics to my daughter, she was half asleep. The lecture had gone waste…

So I decided to write about this because I know she reads my blogs pretty regularly.

MW

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Tags: audience, auras, cyberspace, inferences, interesting things, mathematical value, netizens, online anonymity, Online personalities, personal web page, physical appearance, social networks