Self-Reflection

Putting Your Best Cyberface Forward

How do you act on the web? Are you different? Maybe you’re more open? Or possibly you portray yourself as a better, more perfected version of you?

In the average week or month, I probably meet more people online than I do in person. Our world is changing to the point that first impressions are now made on the web, not in person. This begs to question, how should we act on the web?

I like to think that I’m the same person on the web as I am in person. Though, I suppose I’m more open and more likely to engage or debate online than I am in person. I am a pretty quiet guy. Ultimately, I don’t change who I am, I think I just change how I interact.

Last week the New York Times ran a story, “Putting Your Best Cyberface Forward,” by Stephanie Rosenbloom.

Now that first impressions are often made in cyberspace, not face-to-face, people are not only strategizing about how to virtually convey who they are, but also grappling with how to craft an e-version of themselves that appeals to multiple audiences — co-workers, fraternity brothers, Mom and Dad.

I know that I’ve spent time strategizing how I appear to people online — to the point that everyday of the week has an associated topic. Yes, the topics help me focus on what to blog on, but they also allow me to portray myself as informed in various areas, and with the theology topic help me become a member of the emerging church fraternity of writers and bloggers.

Aside from the personal security fears — most of which are overblown — the thing I worry about the most with engaging people online, or blogging, is fear of retribution by future employers. If I’m associated with a “bad” person via facebook, or I say something on my blog, could it come back to haunt me in a job interview years later? I think that I’ve maintained a fairly clean profile, but how many of my thoughts have been censored because of this fear? Does it make me less ‘real?’ Or is it the same thing as having that censor with real-world interactions? This fear is part of the reason I comment on most blogs as “Joshua K.” I don’t want a Google search to link me to a comment I made that could be taken out of context.

I bring up these thoughts as a follow up to my, “Why I began to and continue to blog,” post. I feel that I am as real as can be, I don’t think I’m a different person, but I wonder if others online have the same struggles?

In general, scholars do not think of impression management as an intentionally deceptive or nefarious practice. It is more like social lubrication without a drink in your hand. Those studying it online have found that when people misrepresent themselves, it is often because they are attempting to express an idealized or future version of themselves — someone who is thinner or has actually finished Dante’s “Inferno.”

I guess I would fit into that explanation. Do you?

Tags: blogging