Blog #2: Personal vs Professional Digital Identity
I’m intentional about managing my personal and professional presence online by keeping my activity as minimal as I can. I am very thoughtful and cautious with my activity. I have many online platforms, both personal and professional, but I don’t have much of a presence at all.
I have LinkedIn to begin shaping my professional identity online. However, I’m not active on it yet. I have a few things on my profile to help me get a good start. I highlight my skills and projects and previous achievements that are worth noting to other people. LinkedIn is a space to connect with other professionals and other people you may know and want to work with. It is easy to portray yourself in a way that differs from your offline self. This is just a part of self-presentation, however, which is what LinkedIn is all about. In professional spaces, everyone wants to look their best, so identity can be curated or manipulated a bit. Brightspace and school work could also in a way be considered a professional identity of mine. It is where the bulk of my academics take place and it is where all of my assignments go. Because I am an English major, most of my work has to do with writing and analyzing. I use a formal tone when writing and talking about anything related to my course work.
In terms of my personal identity, I have various social media platforms: Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. However I don’t present myself in any way on them and I have no posts anywhere. This is a personal choice as I prefer not to participate online in any way except for being a viewer. I consider myself to be a very private person. I will say social media is a great way to interact with friends through messaging or even seeing their posts to keep up with their lives. That is part of what makes the internet so fascinating–how accessible it is. Some see having a personal identity as a risk, due to security issues and passwords, while others see it as a way to create a new identity. The ability to make usernames that hide who we are is very enthralling to some and is the only way they engage with the internet. However, I choose to present myself authentically with my name, but simply leave it at that. You probably couldn’t find many photos of me out there. Overall, whether it is professional or personal, I choose to display myself as someone private and authentic.