Topic 2 : Online Identity, Privacy and Security

Credits: http://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/

Online Identity, Privacy and Security

An online identity is the sum of all your characteristics and online interactions (Internetsociety.org). For instance, my online identity is Elisha Pay and all the other interactions surrounding me. When you have multiple accounts of different identities on Facebook or other network sites, you are likely to be termed as having one or more online identities. As comfortable as we may get with the digital world, we will never share everything about ourselves for fear of identity thefts and bad reputation at stake. For instance, we do not openly share about the bad habits we have.

Before this module, my Twitter account was private. I uses two-way authentication for security purposes on some of my personal accounts. When I first created my social network accounts, everything was public until I was hacked and had a bad stalking experience. I appreciate the creation of security tools but it’s a nuisance when I can’t remember the correct password and get locked out.

Having more than one identity

The argument for having more than one identity is to cope with the fear of being exposed and overexposed. (Jeff Jarvis, 2011) For instance, you would never want to expose your drunken state after drinking with your friends, on your Facebook for fear that your boss will see it and ‘downgrade’ you on a Monday morning. We all have that fear in us, haven’t we? However, being anonymous allow us to have that high-ranking superheroes status without revealing our real identity.

However, in reality, everyone wants genuine consistency. When people found out about your secret ‘superhero’ ranking status, they may look down on you for being a coward. It gets worse when it leads to trust issues or even acceptance (Cristina & Ricardo, 2011). For instance, if you are able to spend that much of time in build up your gaming profile, you are capable of fulfilling your current but you failed to.

As much as having multiple online identities may lead others to think that we are inconsistent, the problem does not lies with having single or multiple online identities. In fact, the creation of even one single account marks the beginning of our digital self (Cistina & Ricardo, 2011). On second thought, it is quite impossible for us to remain connected to only one social network given the fast-growing technology pace. Therefore, the only concern that we should have is to be consistent no matter how many identities we have online.

  

References

PHOTO – . 2014. . [ONLINE] Available at:http://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~bhargav/images/heller.gif. [Accessed 01 December 2014].

Online Identity Overview | Internet Society. 2014. Online Identity Overview | Internet Society. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.internetsociety.org/online-identity-overview#overlay-context=. [Accessed 01 December 2014]

One identity or more? — BuzzMachine. 2014. One identity or more? — BuzzMachine. [ONLINE] Available at:http://buzzmachine.com/2011/03/08/one-identity-or-more/. [Accessed 01 December 2014].

To be or not to be, the importance of Digital Identity in the networked society | Costa | Educação, Formação & Tecnologias – ISSN 1646-933X. 2014. To be or not to be, the importance of Digital Identity in the networked society | Costa | Educação, Formação & Tecnologias – ISSN 1646-933X. [ONLINE] Available at: http://eft.educom.pt/index.php/eft/article/view/216/126. [Accessed 01 December 2014].

My Reflection Summary on Topic 1

After having a look at other people’s blogpost about Visitors and Residents, I believe all of us now are fully aware of the differences between visitors and residents. According to David White, he mention that the difference between visitors and residents is visitors do not leave any traces of existence on the Web but residents do (References – a). Another online article that I came across mentions that we could be residents in some spaces but only ‘short-lived’ (References – b). This means that the current digital space that we are living in might just be substituted by something else as time passes. Anyone remembers Friendster? It has been replaced by Facebook in the current years. Who knows what will be next to take over Facebook?

References – c

One of the things that I found out about digital visitors and residents, in order to understand them better, we have to get behind on what motivates them to come back to the digital world (References – d)? We are clearly aware that age is not a factor that defines whether they are visitors or residents. No doubt that the older generations might not be used to the network spaces because they do not grow up with them. However, as they ‘stay longer’ on the digital space, they will be used to the digital platforms just like how the young people do nowadays.

In conclusion, I guess it doesn’t matter so much whether we are a visitor or a resident. In realities, we could be both a visitor and a resident. For instance, in the visitor mode, I could be researching on different types of flowers to fulfil my science project. I can also be a resident sharing on my Twitter about my weekend. The key takeaway is, will we be prepared for what is ahead of us now or we just remain as where we are now?

References

a. Visitors and Residents – YouTube. 2014.Visitors and Residents – YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOG3iThmRI. [Accessed 28 November 2014].

b. . 2014.. [ONLINE] Available at: http://whataphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Real-evolution-Fun-Photos.png. [Accessed 28 November 2014].

c. Learning with ‘e’s: Taking up residence . 2014.Learning with ‘e’s: Taking up residence . [ONLINE] Available at: http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.sg/2014/03/taking-up-residence.html. [Accessed 28 November 2014].

d. Visitors and residents: what motivates engagement with the digital information environment?. 2014.Visitors and residents: what motivates engagement with the digital information environment?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.informationr.net/ir/18-1/paper556.html#.VHggj9KUc1J. [Accessed 28 November 2014].

Who Do You Think You Are? A Visitor Or A Resident?

As we live in the world where technologies are constantly improving and change is fast, we can’t help but to keep ourselves constantly updated with the latest news, technologies, etc. We could get all the relevant information that we need at a click of our fingers on our mobile devices. However, this digital world that we live in, have differentiates us into two different categories. They are namely the visitors and the residents.

In my opinion, visitors are mainly people who use the Web as a tool to retrieve certain information that they need for a certain desired outcome (1). For instance, if someone wants to know the latest Apple gadget, they can do a quick search on the Internet and get the answers immediately. They will only be online for a while as they do not see the need of staying there for long. They may build their Facebook account to be something comprehensive but they will probably not be on LinkedIn and all the other profiling networks. In short, visitors will be the ones who will separate their online existence from their social life.

Residents are basically people who combine their online existence with their life. They are closely aligned with the social networks and the happenings within the digital world. They are the ones who will be deeply involved on their networks as it is their way of living (2). In fact, they are totally fine with the concept of having part of their life live on the digital world itself. It is their comfort zone.

In case you are unable to visualise the clear differences between visitors and residents. Have a look at the model that Khairul, my classmate has shared with us from David White.

Figure (4)

As for me, initially I would say I’m more of a visitor as compared to a resident. I’m not someone who put in much effort in building my social networks, much less my online profile. I could be using the Internet for more than 5 hours daily but that serves as a tool to meet my needs (3). However, after looking at David White’s model, I’m starting to see myself becoming more of a resident. Why? It is simply because I’m beginning to be more engaged in Twitter and Blogging as I live on this digital space.

What about you? A Visitor or a Resident? Share your thoughts, long to hear from you 🙂

References

1. Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement | White | First Monday. 2014.Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement | White | First Monday. [ONLINE] Available at:http://firstmonday.org/article/view/3171/3049%20https://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~tefko/Courses/Zadar/Readings/Selwyn%20dig%20natives,%20Aslib%20Proceedings%202009.pdf. [Accessed 27 November 2014].

2. TALL blog » Blog Archive » Not ‘Natives’ & ‘Immigrants’ but ‘Visitors’ & ‘Residents’. 2014.TALL blog » Blog Archive » Not ‘Natives’ & ‘Immigrants’ but ‘Visitors’ & ‘Residents’. [ONLINE] Available at:http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/. [Accessed 27 November 2014].

3. Evaluating digital services: a Visitors and Residents approach – Jisc infoNet. 2014. Evaluating digital services: a Visitors and Residents approach – Jisc infoNet. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/evaluating-services/. [Accessed 27 November 2014].

4. Visitors and Residents map 1 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!. 2014.Visitors and Residents map 1 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.flickr.com/photos/jiscinfonet/12947691804/in/set-72157641903755433/. [Accessed 27 November 2014].

Digital Literacy – My first Self-Test

All of us were given a self-test to do before the start of the module. On a rating of scale 1 -5, I need to rate my level of digital literacy with 1 being no experience and 5 being the most experienced. Honestly speaking, I would think of myself nowhere close to being very experienced on any of the given questions. As stated in my introduction post, I’m not someone who builds on online profiling that much.

I rated ‘Accessing, managing and evaluating online communities’ one. I would say I really do not have much or even little experience on managing online information if you are referring to managing information shared about a particular product or even journal entries of my own. I’m really bad at evaluating online information. I do understand that not every online information is true all the time and the need of referencing and checking against other sources. However, I would usually choose to believe what I deemed as correct in my view but I will also take into consideration of the opposite opinions. This makes me struggle and sit on the fence many times.

I gave a rating of two to the following:

• ‘Participating in online communities’
• ‘Building online networks around an area of interest’
• ‘Creating online materials (text, audio, images, video)’

As of now, other than the online MANG2049 community, there is no other online community that I’m currently involved in. Even if I could recall some of past community that I was in, all of the communications has already died off as time passes. Therefore, it explains my little experience here. I remembered creating a network page for one of my past Perth trekking trip a few years ago; there were minor communications between myself and the members. I believe part of the reason was because we came from very different background and the way we see things are very different despite our goal may be the same. Honestly speaking, I’m not quite sure what do creating online materials really mean over here. For instance, in the area of images, are you talking about creating and editing my own images like Photoshop skills? I might have learnt Photoshop skills but I don’t think I could recall any of those now.

Introduction

Hello! Nice to meet you! 🙂

My name is Wen Hui, you can call me Elisha if you find it hard to remember. I created this blog mainly for my current module, MANG2049, Living and Working on Web.

One thing about myself is I am not someone who loves to blog. I still remembered my first touch on blogging was close to 10 years ago. The purpose behind that blog was also for school. Ever since then, blogging to me is something rather boring and time-consuming because you need to figure out the right words to use and the most appropriate way to express yourself or you will be judged. Besides, it takes an extra effort to constantly update your blog daily if not weekly. I guess that’s probably why I left blogging out of my life.

A little bit more about myself, I wasn’t studying about Marketing before I enrolled to this course, Bsc Marketing. In fact, I graduated from an IT course with little prior knowledge about marketing. I decided to study something different after my Internship experience in a small enterprise. I chose marketing mainly because I wasn’t interested in other Business courses.

How do I feel about this course currently? Well, I would be lying if I say it was easy but all I could say is there’s a lot to pick up and I’m still learning by the ropes. However, I remain thankful to God for the support of my fellow friends and family.

That’s all folks. If you need more information from me, you might just want to click on ‘About Elisha’ to find out more. Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you too. Take care! 🙂

Above is the most recent photo that i took while chilling with a friend at an ice-cream waffle. See you! 🙂