Month: September 2020

•  What is a digital identity?
•  How do personal versus professional approaches to digital identity affect social media use?
•  How do digital identities converge in networked publics – what are the impacts and/or benefits?

Digital identity is what I present on the Internet. It includes all the content and sharing that I publish on the Internet. It is a manifestation of how I participate in the online community and treat others. Digital identity is also how I use digital tools to serve the benefit of myself and others. Digital identity is my footprint on the Internet, my works, blogs, and tweets that can be searched. Everything I do on the Internet represents my digital identity.

Being active on social media benefits both personal and professional purposes, provided that we create an image of a good work attitude in personal social situations. Many employers consider not only professional skills, but also hobbies and passions of prospective employees outside of work. Due to the widespread use of social media nowadays, people’s lives have become more transparent because the boundaries between work and career have become blurred. Many companies have realized the value of carefully understanding the personal life and hobbies of candidates before hiring employees. As long as we are careful not to post inappropriate or offensive content on our personal social media accounts and let your personality and interests shine, we can help employers understand your unique identity and determine how you fit into the company culture.
Personal accounts and professional accounts are not isolated. If we have two social accounts, one for work and one for private use for different purposes, we should use and speak with caution. Because if we only use professional accounts to establish contact with leaders and colleagues, they will still be able to find and view our private accounts. Even our private accounts may be pushed to them by social media. So, even if we have two accounts, we still have to be cautious.
Employers usually appreciate dedicated employees, and it’s no harm to like or share personal photos, such as family photos, insights, and news related to your favorite entertainment or other personal interests. However, we must avoid using extremist views or inappropriate descriptions of certain things. We should try not to post any content on personal or professional social media that is not suitable for bosses, colleagues, or corporate customers.
We used to be able to distinguish professional and personal lives more easily, but today these two areas of life are more and more integrated because of social media. Therefore, we need to weigh the pros and cons before merging professional and personal social media accounts. Both personal and professional digital identities have an impact on the use of social media.

The integration of digital identities in networked publics mainly relies on users’ personal social groups and business purposes. What kind of community activities users participate in and the use of digital identities will have different effects.

The benefits of digital identity are:
1. Greatly protect the privacy of users. The user can choose who has access to it.
2. Users can establish strong relationships with many people (such as bosses, colleagues, and customers).
3. Break down barriers in communication to improve user experience.
4. Participation in the online community is greatly improved.
5. Can strengthen teamwork and communication skills within the company.
6. Bring benefits to yourself and others.
7. Meet a lot of like-minded people.

The effects of digital identity are:
1. To a certain extent, the balance between life and work has been changed, and the two have merged.
2. No longer able to express their opinions completely freely, and will consider more.
3. Face the risk of fraud and identity theft.
4. The company’s investigation of social media may violate privacy rights.

More resources:

http://www.educationforhealth.net/article.asp?issn=1357-6283;year=2019;volume=32;issue=1;spage=33;epage=35;aulast=Jawed

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137405876_6

Digital Identities: Six Key Selves of Networked Publics

●  What does it mean to network using social media?

●  How do people learn & engage using mediated platforms?

●  How are we motivated to participate in networked publics?

●  What are the risks & rewards of public communications?

Social media sites and applications that enable people to share content quickly, efficiently, and in real-time. Many people access social media through smartphone applications, but this communication tool starts with computers. Social media can refer to any Internet communication tool that allows users to widely share content and interact with the public. For the Internet, social media has changed our way of life, learning, and business.

People can participate in online education through various forms of communication. Not only email and forums, video chat, and even social media applications are also essential. These are good ways to participate and learn through the platform, efficient, and low-cost. Online platform courses can provide students with sufficient learning opportunities. Online learners hope to have more learning opportunities to encourage themselves to learn and participate. Self-assessment in each chapter is also essential for online learners. They can take more responsibility for their own learning. Online learners can keep in touch with teachers and classmates at all times and get timely and effective feedback. Sometimes good feedback is the best way to motivate online learners to be more interested in learning.

Networked publics have changed the role of the public in society, blurred the boundaries between public and private, disrupted the unique social environment, and broke the importance of physical places that restrict public participation. If we want to actively participate in networked publics, we must first change our inherent thinking. We should be willing to accept the development of technology and the change of lifestyle. In life, we have to find valuable social networks around us. For example, by searching for groups with the same hobby, a campus group, and so on. In general, you can only actively participate in networked publics if you make yourself happy. Try to discover where you are interested, and try to share on the Internet, create groups, and communicate with like-minded friends. It is not difficult to actively participate in networked publics, the most important thing is to take the first step!

I understand public communications as communicating through social media. First, the advantage of public communications lies in its low cost. People no longer have to worry about the high additional costs due to distance. Public communications provide opportunities for many people with the same hobbies to communicate, and even many business activities begin here. Public communications also enhance friendships between friends and provide opportunities to build potential relationships. Most importantly, public communications provide countless learning opportunities. But public communications also has risks. Public communications sometimes affect personal reputation and image. When someone makes inappropriate comments in public communications, he may become the target of attack. Public communications are also very likely to encounter network fraud and personal information stolen. At the same time, using public communications is also likely to be harassed and verbally insulted by others. Many times, participating in useless public communications is a waste of time.

More resources： https://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.html

https://www.gwsmedia.com/social-media-benefits-risks

Hi everyone,

My name is Jixuan Sun. I am from Shanghai, China. I am a fourth-year economics student at the University of Victoria. If all goes well, I will graduate this year. 🙂 I love traveling and sports. EDCI 338 is my last course, so I hope to learn some knowledge related to Personalized Learning. I am very happy to meet you all!