On Online Identity

The current social media trend has had a huge effect on the way we interact with each other on the web. Both our personal and business relationships rely more and more heavily on sites like Facebook and Twitter; and yet there's still no real way of knowing for sure that the people we talk to online are really who they say they are. Even on Facebook, where it's generally the case that people use their real names, confusion often arises: for example when an old friend from school who has since married pops up with a different surname.

A similar issue rears it's head when talking about blogs and their authors. It strikes me that writing or curating a blog or online diary is a very personal thing. Yet privacy is really a non-issue here; after all, you've consciously chosen to make your thoughts accessible to the entire web. Why, then, are there so many blogs and journals out there whose authors are either completely anonymous, or write under a pseudonym?

Personally, I like people to know who I am. I always use my real name and a photo to identify myself online, where possible; I think it helps people to connect when they can put a face to the words that they're reading. That said, I can completely understand why some people revel in the anonymity of the internet. It's a place where you can easily appear to be more than you are; where all that your audience gets to see of the “real you” are the parts that you let them see.

This could be seen as deceptive, but I'd argue that it simply mirrors normal human behaviour. We present and conduct ourselves differently in response to specific situations: a smart suit and polite manner for a job interview, a faded t-shirt and coarse humour amongst good friends. So it follows that we're bound to self-edit when facing a potential audience of millions.

The ability to explore and push forward multiple aspects of our personalities is perhaps also part of the appeal. I have three separate Twitter accounts: a personal account, a “professional” account and an account to which I post updates about this blog. Each one gives the reader a different impression of who I am, purely because I post things to my personal account that I would never post to the others (and vice versa). All of the accounts are easily traceable back to me and it's certainly not the case that I'm deliberately trying to hide anything; however if you looked at all of them individually, you could easily be led to believe that they represented three different people—especially if you didn't know me in person.

Another reason for seeking anonymity is that it absolves us of any responsibility for the opinions we express. We can see the effect of this lack of accountability all over the web, most typically in the form of user comments. Anonymous commentators react to articles and videos in ways that they would never dare to, were their true identities not hidden.

Again, personally speaking , I think that if you're going to say something—controversial or otherwise—then you'd better be willing to put your name to it and accept that some people are going to disagree with you. An opinion really means nothing unless it comes from an actual person; indeed, I've recently been part of a discussion about this at the Design Assembly site.

I'm interested to see what the next steps are with regard to our online identities. Technologies like OpenID are already moving us towards having a “universal login”, by centralising the credentials with which we access our online profiles; with more and more of us socialising online and some of the more irrational privacy fears starting to dilute, will there come a time when anonymity no longer exists on the web?