Blog 3

For me the topic that I felt most engaged in and seemed to elicit a lot of discussion during this section of class occurred in week 11. This discussion was centered on the question that Turkle asks, "is the 'personae' we create online an expanded self or separate from the self?" (pg 180) And the instructors question “Is your online identity who you really are or is it an expanded version of yourself—possibly a separate identity?” For me I do not have anything to hide or ashamed of, so my online personae is the same as the one I live in real world. I believe that our online personae is an extension of who we are, for some this allows who they really are to come out without the reservation that real life may place on them. For many their real life personae’s consist of compromises that they have had to make to conform to the norm or what others expect of them, so I do not believe that this real life personae is truly not who they are deep inside. For these people the online format allows those people to bring out their real personae from deep inside in a somewhat anonymous fashion without retribution from those in their real life. Being anonymous is the key here as the amazing popularity of social media sites such as Facebook makes it ever more difficult to hide facts from people you meet in this day in age. Not that that is a bad thing as I think it would be harder for those that do not do the correct or moral right thing may get caught, such as adulterers. Your whole life can be basically accessed by a search on Facebook depending on the security setting you have set. I believe that although these peoples online personae’s and in real life personae’s may have some differences the online personae just allows them to expand on their real life personae’s to create a whole. Further the instructor asked us “If you feel as though it is separate, does this change the ethical nature of any of your behavior while acting as this persona? Why or why not?” While I did not think that are personae’s are separate I still believe that the anonymous nature of some sites allows people to act in ways they would not in their real life or in person. Again I believe this is true because being anonymous allows you do the things you would not do if your name was attached to the act. This does not mean their personae’s are different, but that they are able to expand on it.