Digital Identity has a number of different definitions in the literature. It can refer to the usernames and digital footprint that individuals choose and leave behind after using the Internet for different purposes such as banking or purchasing goods (Whitley & Hosein 2010).
For others it represents the identity that a user assumes when involved in a defined environment, such as playing games (Donath 1999; Ellison et al. 2006; Rheingold 1993). The
previous chapter explored the idea of social information being searchable and resilient and these issues are important changes in the way that we present information. It is the information that is left behind and the habitual updates that create a Digital Identity.
There is growing discourse around the technical side of Digital Identity, which is not involved in the formation of sociological identity but rather includes the issues of authorization, access, identity theft and privacy (Halperin & Backhouse 2008). The technical side is more about the technology than the user (Brubaker 2009). Ma and Agarwal (2007, p. 43) state that ‘the role of technology is central to our theorizing. Because technology is the foundation and medium through which community members interact, it is the key determinant of the dynamics of the community’.
Digital Identity is formed by personal profiles, cultural capital and records - such as videos on YouTube (Tredinnick 2008). Gergen (2009, p. 1) commented on Descartes famous quote (‘I think therefore I am’) by creating a Social Media update: ‘I am linked therefore I am’. From this we infer that digital identity is created by interacting between individuals. Tredinnick (2008, p. 139) agrees that the digital realm gives us the power to ‘determine how we are defined within the socio-cultural sphere’. While individuals are the product of their unique personal biography they are not entirely free to choose who they are because of social situations and interactions (Buckingham 2008).
Virtual Identity is similar to Digital Identity but is specifically the territory of virtual worlds.
These are applications where people engage in MUDs and virtual platforms such as Second Life.
In these worlds an individual chooses a persona and represents it with an avatar. Digital Identity is more than choice of avatar or screen name. While the studies into the significance of how we represent ourselves physically online are important, it is not the focus in this research, and has already been explored by a number of different researchers (Davis 2010; Gatson &
Zweerink 2004; Boudreau 2007; Miller 2007; Nakamura 2002; Subrahmanyam, Smahel, &
Greenfield 2006; Turkle 1995 & 2011; Robinson 2007; Whitty 2007; Whitty & Buchannan 2010).
As identified in the previous chapter, one of the issues of using Social Media is the fear that the information ‘at the other end’ is not authentic. This has been a discussion in academia since the advent of the Internet and has seen a shift in understanding over the last decade. Turkle’s (1995)
seminal work of the 1990s talked about identity play in the online environment, and confirmed the importance of roles in an online environment. She stated that we no longer simply play different roles in different settings at different times but rather have become a decentered self that exists in many worlds, with many simultaneous roles. In later studies (Turkle 2004, p. 21) she stated that ‘computers are more than screens to project personality but facilitate the development of personality, of identity, and even of sexuality’. Davis (2010) contradicts her emphasis on the multiplicity of self and states that there is no differentiation between online and offline selves. Turkle’s early studies concentrated on MUD users and her findings were that people played dramatically with their image online; pretending to be something they were not and being loose with identity markers such as gender, age, and sexuality. The conclusions made by a number of scholars (Turkle 1995; Van Gelder 1991) are that the anonymity of MUDs allowed for deception. More recently it has been suggested that the anonymous nature of the internet has changed and that the studies of the 1990s into MUD users does not properly represent all internet users (Davis 2010).
Jewkes and Sharp (2003, p. 3) concur that the Internet allows for individuals to conceal aspects of themselves while at the same time projecting identities that are ‘fantastic, fraudulent, exploitative or criminal’ and that online identities allow for individuals to be whatever they wish to be and that it can be rewritten constantly. Aboujaode (2011) proposes that the online environment allows individuals not only an opportunity to recreate parts of themselves with which they are unhappy, but as a platform to share less mature and antisocial impulses. This infers that the internet takes away the traditional barriers of culture and social expectations. In the studies by both Turkle and Aboujaode, their research with patients found that their online personalities were freer than their offline selves. Some research (Manago et al. 2008) indicates that individuals use Social Network Sites to create idealized selves. They claim the profile that people create online reflects the owner’s ideal-self view – rather than what they are actually like.
Yet a study by Back et al. (2009) refuted this idea after testing the idealized hypothesis and observed that there was no evidence of self-idealization.
Cabiria (2008) suggested that the design of virtual worlds allows individuals to freely explore the different facets of their personalities more easily than they could in the real world. Adrian (2008, p. 367) refers to Virtual Worlds as ‘domains of liquid identity’ where identity is ‘self-defined rather than pre-ordained’. The anonymity of virtual worlds allows for ‘play’ but that the
ubiquitous nature of Facebook and Twitter makes it far more difficult to maintain such a complicated lie. Facebook and Twitter are about the everyday, while MUDs and Virtual Worlds such as Second Life are a place to play games. Indalecio (2010, p. 1) states that ‘if an individual created a virtual identity that is different from their real life identity, it can take a lot of psychological effort to maintain the false identity’.
Robinson (2007, p. 94) found in their study that individuals ‘do not seek to transcend the most fundamental aspects of their offline selves. Rather, users bring into being bodies, personas, and personalities framed according to the same categories that exist in the offline world’. This idea is also supported by Davis (2010) whose work shows that individuals are generally inclined towards sincere portrayals of themselves. Curtis (1997) found through observational research that even though people were given the option to experiment with identity in terms of gender, age etc they chose not to.
When reviewing Facebook Van Kokswijk (2007, p. 63) observed that identity was ‘a conscious construction, it can evolve subconsciously over a period of time, or it could simply be a reflection of the user in real life’. A similar view was held by Boon and Sinclair (2009, p. 18) who stated that ‘the selves we re-create on Facebook are inevitably part us – re-creating ourselves in digital form – and, again to one extent of another, part who we’d like to be – the creation of something new, perhaps better, but ultimately “other”.’ They contend that the virtual self can be at odds with reality and because of this, individuals can see their digital selves as ‘superficial, artificial or even fraudulent’. They go on to state that ‘it is worryingly difficult to find the person in among all the digital artifice’. Shaw (1997) calls this self-regulated self presentation.
Another issue around Digital Identity is the concept of fragmentation. Boon and Sinclair (2009) think that online identities are fractured and not real (or unreal) but ‘a seeming half truth’. But according to boyd, Potter and Viegas (2002) fragmentation is about conflicting internal identity not a social identity. They argue that online communication can reflect the multi-faceted identity rather than fragmented, highlighting that multiple sides of person is part of identity formation.
Besley (2010, p. 14) supports this by saying that identity is a social presentation that occurs in different contexts and at different times. Turkle (1995) also used the term fragmentation but considered it a ‘healthy’ fragmented self that it allowed for self discovery and self-transformation.
One of the key differences in presentation in a digital environment is the scope and depth of uninvited and invisible audiences that can impact the identity created online. ‘The book of our lives is being written by silent hands every day’ (Tredinnick 2008, p. 138). While in pre-online days gossip could be spread widely by people who knew or didn’t know the gossiper, the internet (and particularly Social Media) allows for hundreds of thousands of people to interact (Solove 2007). This interaction with the information shared by individuals is the unknown factor of online presentation of self. The ownership of Identity now seems less permanent. When Identity theorists discuss interaction it is usually in the concept of people with whom the individual has made contact in one way or another. In the digital world this widens to a much larger audience.
Some of these ideas of Digital Identity, such as those from Turkle, are a Web 1.0 version of identity. In the same way that the web has shifted, we need to investigate the way that Digital Identity is formed as it should have also developed. The next three sections address Identity Theory, Social Identity Theory and Impression Management; different schools of thought on how identity is created. These theories are discussed to best identify how to approach Digital Identity in the age of Social Media.