This week we discussed Digital Identity and Personal Learning Networks, which are two aspects of our society that are continuously growing and becoming more prevalent as technology becomes further integrated into our lives.
Our digital identity is formed just like our offline identity, through our shared understandings, discourses and perceived realities and are made through connections as humans search for meaning and belonging in their lives. Digitally, humans are able to form connections and find spaces where their identity is cultivated through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. We are able to create unique and personalized online spaces for ourselves tailored to our sets of interests, opinions, and values. We choose who to follow or friend, who to interact with and what we like. In the learning pods this week, Lily and I related this from our personal experience back to the Identity Making and Social Media article. I talked about how this process can often lead to the false reality that everyone around us thinks the same way as us and holds the same opinions as we do, because this is reinforced by the extreme level of curation. Our digital identity is also formed by the way we present ourselves online, which was touched on in the What is Digital Identity video. The commentator stated that “everything that you post, share, how you engage with and treat other people and how you use digital tools” (Stoller, 2016) are all factors that form our footprint online. This portion of the video can be related to one of the articles we read last week, titled Surveillance and Society. Both the video and this article discussed how our digital footprint can sometimes be a disadvantage of social media and having a digital identity, as others interpretations of how we present ourselves online can sometimes be negative.
The concept of digital identity is also greatly related to personal learning networks. As we discussed last week, our personal learning networks are created through the development of our online and offline identities; thus our digital identity is a part of our personal learning network which is the greater web of all of our connections from which we learn. The Identity Making and Social Media article describes how digital spaces are constantly being used by us to collect information throughout our daily lives and have made it increasingly easy to access to platforms such as newsfeeds, forums about our interests and important social movements.
Our digital identity is also able to relate back to last week’s discussion on professional networks. Professional networks are created through, “the act of making connections with other professionals” (Rajagopal, 2012) and also fall under the larger category of a personal learning network. Professional networks can be facilitated through our digital identity, which is discussed in the article from this week entitled Digital Professional Identity: Dear Internet! Who Am I?. The author describes DPI, or digital professional identity, “that develops through internet based social interactions by utilizing online platforms and communication tools” (Jawed, et al., 2019), and emphasizes the importance of internet communication on the development of a professional identity. It is evident that our digital identities and the professional networks we create are extremely interlinked.
References:
Boyd, D. (n.d.). Surveillance & Society. View of Networked Privacy. https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/networked/networked
Jawed, Saira; Mahboob, Usman; Yasmeen, Rahila. Digital Professional Identity: Dear Internet! Who am I?. Education for Health 32(1):p 33-35, Jan–Apr 2019. DOI: 10.4103/efh.EfH_232_17
Rajagopal, K., Joosten–ten Brinke, D., Van Bruggen , J., & B. Sloep, P. (2012). View of Understanding personal learning networks: Their structure, content and the networking skills needed to optimally use them: First Monday. View of Understanding personal learning networks: Their structure, content and the networking skills needed to optimally use them | First Monday. https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3559/313
University of Derby. (2016, November 25). Eric Stoller – What is Digital Identity? [Video]. Youtube.