The topic of having one online identity or many reminded me of something I remember from my younger days. When I was at school, I remember being taught one of the most important rules of the web was to never tell people your real name or give out any personal details. The threat of cyber-crime was one that people were very much afraid of, and the idea that somebody you’d never even met could know your name was a horrifying notion for the people of the early 2000’s. Flash-forward to the 2010’s and everybody’s connected to every website through their Facebook, which has their full name, where they live, where they went to school, blood type, favourite pizza topping, whether they put ketchup in the fridge or the cupboard, everything about you is on your Facebook account and is readily available for people to see. The idea that somebody is out there, online, browsing the web under a pseudonym, or even anonymously, is a more chilling thought for many digital residents these days.
But which is better: One online identity saying everything about you, or many online identities keeping things secret between each identity? Alas, I am not Harry Hill and can’t make the two concepts fight each other, so I guess the next best thing is to blog about it, and half-way through my word limit seems like the perfect point to start doing so.
I mentioned the idea that anybody can find out everything about everybody, and it may seem like exaggeration, however with a constant online identity more information inevitably gets linked to one place, and you’d be surprised at how much info there may be about yourself. Nothing shows this better than Take This Lollipop – an interactive online movie where you enter your Facebook profile, and a scary stranger is seen looking you up, and driving to your house. It’s obviously an exaggerated example, but it’s a surprisingly chilling depiction of the dangers of a constant online identity.
This may seem like I prefer having many online identities, but this isn’t perfect either. When we have many online identities, they tend to be under ‘usernames’ rather than real names. This anonymity can drive away people less versed in internet culture, and causes the culture to mature deprived of more outside influences, becoming harder to penetrate, leading to a vicious circle. Which is certainly less fun.
Chris is Living and Working on the Web 
Hi Chris,
Although I feel like you could have explored the pros and cons of online identities a little more, I very much enjoyed your humorous post!
It’s bizarre to come to terms with the online identity change we have undergone in ten years, from not disclosing any personal details online to being up close and personal with various sites. I completely agree with you in the sense that, as a digital resident, online anonymity is worrying as it opens the door to criminal and antisocial behaviour.
I believe that we should be entitled to a certain amount of anonymity to carry out tasks such as online banking as we do not want these details to be available to everyone. But, Krotoski discusses how anonymity allows people to be creative and figure out their identity. If you have nothing to hide and you aren’t using the internet with malicious motives, being creative and figuring out one’s identity doesn’t need to be done anonymously. What do you think?
Thanks for sharing your post!
Lucy
P.S. Ketchup should always go in the fridge
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Hey I really enjoyed your blog post. An interesting point on the use of ‘usernames’ is the fact that most people have at some point linked their username to their actual name and email address. With a bit of help from google, these accounts can all be linked and usernames can be linked to a person. The only way of truly keeping these accounts apart is to fake all your information and setting up a completely new email address.
If people truly wanted to stay anonymous online they would have to use a VPN or the TOR browser as this will hide your information rather well. The problem with these two options though is that they are both slow and this puts people off the idea of using them and then encourages non-private browsing.
https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en
http://www.cyberghostvpn.com/en_gb
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Hello Chris,
I enjoyed your blog post until I clicked on ‘Take this lollipop’ and now I feel I am frightened for life! I know it’s exaggerated but it’s true that people can find information on us very easily if we don’t keep keep an eye of our security. Even if we do make our Facebook/Twitter profiles private I’m still not entirely convinced that we are completely safe from the internet due to website owners watching our every move/click/search.
What you could have expanded a bit more on is the positives of having a little anonymity. Some people will want to use the internet to escape from their lives, as discussed in the Guardian article which was suggested to us, but how are they meant to do that if everything reminds them of their life? Therefore do you agree they’re allowed a little more creativity other than just a random username? I don’t believe in cat fishing but I do believe you can express yourself away from the limelight of your real life.
You’re writing is easy to follow and humorous and I really appreciate that in a blog post! So thanks for the read!
Jess
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Big help, big help. And sutpalreive news of course.
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