I am going to start by discussing my blogger. She is a very outgoing, loving, passionate runner, mother, friend, and wife. All of her blogs are very positive and uplifting. (Which they should be, right?) Well, that is the great thing about communicating online, especially on a blog, you can make yourself LOOK good. You do not have to include the bad; therefore, the happy-go-lucky self is exposed, constantly. Turkle comments by saying that cycling through all the different aspects of ones personality is not a common experience. My point also being, how can you show who you really are through an online identity? You truly, truly can’t.
Byam asks in this chapter, “when people’s bodies aren’t visible, will people lie about who they are? Can they be trusted? Can they be known?” This perception of people is in the hands of each one of us. Some people trust online identities too much and end up troubled, hurt, and full of doubt.
I think that both Byam and Turkle are trying to raise awareness of online identities and how easy one can alter their own identity, whether for good, bad, or just experimentation. It is a scary thought knowing that Byam provided many examples of people falling for false social identities and potentially placing a danger in their life. These articles reminded me of when I was probably in middle school, investigating and experimenting with chat rooms and completely fooling someone else with my true identity. Although, my memories were purely innocent, some are not.
I am pretty confident to say that my blogger is telling the truth (maybe not the WHOLE truth about the negative part of her life). She posts pictures A LOT and that would be a difficult thing to fake. :)
The ability to omit the bad or unpleasant parts of our personalities isn’t exclusive to CMC. I can think of many people I interact with FtF that omit these parts of their personalities as well. Making yourself look good is an act most people take advantage of much of the time, so I think its natural that it seeps into CMC transactions as well, especially blogging.
Excellent point, Meagan. CMC just enhances our abilities to represent ourselves. That’s a major part of its efficacy. We try to manage our impressions all the time; it is just much easier to monitor online. There are technological affordances that lend to our presentations. Reduced cues allow for more room for others to infer based on their own social reality and stereotypes. People can assume and accept their own version of each other by tapping into their existing realities.
For how long you can make yourself look good?In fact, we all would love to look good all the time but this is very hard because life is not a bed of flowers and we all have to go through ups and downs in ourlives. I always put a big smile one my face when I Skype with my mother and that’s because I love her and want her to see me happy all the time. But do you think she wouldn’t know whether I’m faking it or not, of course she would.
I believe in one thing, if a person act the way he or she are everybody will feel that this person is authentic and not fake. Just be yourself!
Just like she omits the unhappy parts of her life from her posts, she can omit unhappy things from pictures by cropping or only taking pictures of the happy things. I don’t think that means people aren’t being themselves, I just think it means you don’t get exposed to the whole person. You only get a piece of the person. This is common in face to face communication as well. When you meet someone, you don’t expect them to tell you their whole entire life. People probably keep the unhappy things to themselves so that they don’t get accused of oversharing.
The point that there really isn’t a way for us to know who we are communicating with through CMC was a key point from both of the readings this week. Personally, I see plent of past classmates and highschool friends that portray one life style but in reality they are no where near living that way. I think that Baym and Turkle hit the nail on the hammer with the point that the internet is an escape. People don’t want to air their dirty laundry, they want to show the internet world that their life is a bowl of cherries, NOT!
Your post and the discussion reminds me of what Baron found in her study of AIM away messages – people presenting themselves as “me on my best day.” If you think about it, that is often what bloggers are doing, selectively presenting some aspect of themselves to an audience, in a carefully cultivated way. To Rula’s point, it’s probably much easier to do this online than F2F, because you have the time to carefully craft a message.
I think you make an excellent point in your blog. If you have never met a person in real life, and you are only exposed to them on the internet, it would be impossible to really know who they are. A person doesn’t have to lie to conceal a part of themselves, they may just choose to not post things that show a deeper part of their personality. Your blogger is a great example of this, because she is obviously using her blog as a place for positivity, although we can assume that, as a human being, every day of her life is not great and fantastic! But she manages her online persona to be one of excessive happiness, for personal reasons. If you met her in real life, she might be the saddest person you ever did meet. We have no way of knowing. But that doesn’t make her a liar online, it just means that she has cultivated an online personality of happiness. I find it very interesting to think about the reasons behind why people create the cyber-personas that they do.
I agree Baym and Turkle are trying to make us aware of how easy it is to lie. However, is I lie online am I lying for my benefit or someone else? Am I lying to establish my own identity or to allow others to determine there own opinion of my identity. Many people feel that their life is boring so they have to make themselves seem interesting online. You made a valid point if you never met the person how do you know who they are. You don’t you only know what that person give you to know therefore they’re able to impact your perception of them.
I do the same thing as your blogger. All my Facebook posts are mostly optimistic. I very rarely share with my Facebook friends if I am angry or upset. I generally keep those feelings to myself and if I want to discuss it I will just call one of my close friends. I have vented on Facebook a couple of times in the past. I think my need to stay optimistic on Facebook has actually passed over to my real life. The reason I think this is because I am always thinking of the positives even when the negatives outweigh them.
I think there’s also something to be said for pure, simple intuition. If you are interacting with someone online, via blog, SNS, or more direct correspondence, I feel that people sell themselves short in their ability to perceive whether or not the other party is an impostor.
Excellent way of explaining identity! How do we really know a person outside of CMC and if they are really who they seem to be? I am definitely a witness at seeing someone have a ongoing friendship with someone they have never met in person for a very long time. I fell like that is a way of misleading and deception to the person who might actually be truthful about their identity. People should really do a lot more research on those they communicate with online