Online and Offline life

Are our real life and digital persona any different? The answer is probably both yes and no. I think everyone has a different persona for all kinds of given social scenarios. We perceive ourselves differently outside of work than we might with our friends or family. We act differently when collaborating with people we don’t know as opposed to ones we do, and likewise behave differently online than we do in real life. So yes we probably perceive ourselves differently in the online world, but no, it isn’t any different in than what we do in the real world.
There are some characteristics of new media that tend to have a common impact on our online persona. One of which is the anonymity allotted by the internet. We can pick and choose who we want to be. We can be the same as our real life self or make someone up as a sort of safety net. “The anonymity of the Internet leads people to behave differently than they do face-to-face. Research from Euro RSCG Worldwide shows that nearly 43% of US Internet users feel less inhibited online, with the effect most prominent among females and users ages 25 to 54” (eMarketer, 2009).
Although teenagers have on and off line lives as do most they have a tendency to blend those lives more in their media use. Ito, M., Sonja B., Matteo B., Boyd, D. Cody, R., Herr, B., Horst, H.A., Lange, P.G., Mahendran, D., Martinez, K., Pascoe, C.J., Perkel, D., Robinson, L., Sims, C., and Tripp, L in the book, Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out use these three horribly mis-defined terms in their title to respectively define how youth communicate, learn by interface, and actively learn through these media types respectively. It is an otherwise fantastic inside look at how kids socialize and learn through today’s media sources, primarily mobile and online communication. “…we note that the teens in our studies are becoming particularly adept at maintaining a continuous presence in multiple social communication contexts. We also see kids hanging out or engaging in multiple social contexts concurrently…Geeking out often involves an explicit challenge to existing social and legal norms and technical restrictions. It is a subcultural identity that self-consciously plays by a different set of rules than mainstream society” (Ito et al, 2009, pg. 49 & 71)