Identity and Self Online

With more social interaction being conducted online, there will have to be changes in the way we think of identity.

# How do we define ourselves online?

# How do others "see" us?

# What do others think about us?

I have always been interested in why people are the way they are. As people are increasingly becoming more involved in online activities, there is a shift in how people perceive themselves and other people. I wanted to examine how people are beginning to recognize and solve this shift.

From Life on the Screen by Sherry Turkle [p. 231]:

Once we take virtuality seriously as a way of life, we need a new language for talking about the simplest things. Each individual must ask: What is the nature of my relationships? What are the limits of my responsibility? And even more basic: Who and what am I? What is the connection between my physical and virtual bodies? And is it different in different cyberspaces? These questions are framed to interrogate an individual, but with minor modifications, they are equally central for thinking about community. What is the nature of our social ties? What kind of accountability do we have for our actions in real life and in cyberspace? What kind of society or societies are we creating, both on and off the screen?

We can easily move through multiple identities, and we can embrace — or be trapped by— cyberspace as a way of life.

My ideal audience for this project would be people who

# belong to several social networking sites (or are at least familiar with them)
# are interested in trust online
# are interested in reputation online
# are interested in identity online
# are interested in attention online
# are interested in openID

I will be submitting a research paper, but I would like to supplement the paper with some projects that will hopefully help to illustrate and contextualize some of the concepts I will be writing about.