WELCOME TO YOUR NEW IDENTITY!

As Aleks Krotoski and Ben Hammersley highlights that “Identity is a complex concept…It is variously used to consider the way in which one is recognized”. My identity too so varies from one social media platform to the other. Due to the fact that I got introduced to social media platforms in my early teenage years, unfortunately, I have left huge amount of digital footprints of myself all over the web and in doing so I have created many identities that does not explain who I am now as an adult.

The very first time I started using social media platforms, I was not aware of all the dangers it possessed, and therefore I started to create new identities on many social networks such as, Facebook, Tweeter, Tango and many more just because I wanted to experience and explore the new world beyond my front door. As an individual coming from a country that was far back from modern technologies, these social media platforms in a way provided new opportunities that I did not had before, such keeping in touch with my family and friends back home and learning the language (English) quicker. Unfortunately, when I was in my early teenage years, I was a very naïve little girl and instead of using these opportunities, I got caught up in a web that drew me away from my family, friends and the things that mattered to me. During my early teenage years, the line between what is private to share and what is not private to share and most importantly who you can trust in social media platforms had become blur to me and this had caused a lot of problems and heart aches between my family, friends and me.

Now, becoming an adult and studying Bachelor of Cyber Security and Behaviour, I have learned how to manage each of my identities in different social media platforms. In terms of sharing my ideas and believes, I have learned that there are certain things that should not be shared online, as everything you share has consequence’s and most people takes it the wrong way or even that they are not ready to read about certain things. As shown in the matrix bellow, I have managed to use certain social media platforms for certain thing that matters to me.

Nowadays my social life and social identity is very private (Facebook, WhatsApp), there are only a view social media platform, such as Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube that I use publicly and I am happy to say that most of my social media identities reflect who I am as a person in real life and my interests and goals are the same. The only line in this matrix blur are Snapchat and Instagram because I use them both for my private life and my public life. In the next few years I am hopping, that my identity well become more professionally based as I well be participating in wider society and more professionally based workplace.