How social networks may influence our digital identities

noviembre 30th, 2011 · No hay Comentarios

Do you ever think how social networks influence our lifes? There are plenty of issues related to the activity of this kind of networks, as for example the nature of our digital identities. These identities are influenced by the workstyle of social networks. Tomás Delclós shows how some companies use them to promote their products or share information by means of their personal accounts.

Sharing personal information on the internet contributes to create digital identities, that is to say, digital identities are shaped by the information that the internet has about us. For instance, when somebody uploads a photograph where some faces appear, this faces are developing a part of the identities of these people on the internet.

Social Networks

The trendy term social network refers to a space on the internet with regard to stablish social relationships that always have existed in our daily life known by the same term, social networks, but in this case they appear like web applications that offer the possibility to get in touch with people and to share information. Social networks are currently attracting the interest of experts who research and analize their evollution and impact on social platforms.

Digital identities

Nowadays the internet has more information that we can imagine. Because of that sometimes is very suprising the moment that we enter our names in a reseacher and discover that there is information about us that we do not know. For instance, is possible the existence of photographs that we do not know, but are already in the internet. The internet says a lot about us sometimes with our consciousness but other times without our knowledge of it.

The digital identity refers to the image that we have in the internet. This image can be created by ourselves but also by others. The problem is that sometimes, for example, when we decide to apply for a job, the company that we are applying for will probably invest about ourselves on the internet with regard to get the information available about us, and our digital identity would be a vital point to achieve the job or not. Digital identities have a relevant concern to our privacy and because of that is extremly important to be conscious about the privacy policy of the social networks that we are belong to.

Probably, some people would be quiet because they are not belong to any social network. However, it has not a great relevance to the fact of having a digital identity. For instance, nowadays the trouble of bullying at schools is becaming in ciberbullying thought the use of social networks between students. A recent case shows how pupils have taken some photographs in class to their teacher in a committed situation and later the photographs have been uploaded to social networks without the knowledge of him. At first, the teacher did not know nothing about the photographs but later he realized about the existence of them creating a big conflict, and applying for measures with concern to avoid these phenomena that have influenced his digital identity.

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