The Shape Of Our Online Identity

Chances are you have some kind of “username” you’ve created for yourself. You use it for a variety of services online; perhaps one for commenting on blogs and newsmedia stories, another for a hobby network you belong to? Our research also shows us that 80% of the visitors reading this blog are over 22 and have or are getting a university education.

But what about our identities that we use in Cyburbia? Or as some call those who spend any amount of time online “Digital Natives.” How do we shape our online identity and how is it different between age groups? We’ve compiled aggregated data from over 100 research projects to better understand how a persons identity shapes depending on their age group and phase of life.

The chart below captures some interesting elements of our online identity development. As can be readily seen, the younger we are, the more we tend to explore and play with identities online. As we get older, our identity begins to solidify and our online world and activities relate to our real-world engagement. When we are young, shifting identities is easy. As we are older, this becomes harder to do…we have jobs, mortgages, debt and a family (most likely) to raise. This data is also very much a “now” chart in that as the Internet generation grows older, these indicators that apply today, will change.

It is also interesting to note the similarities in online behaviour to offline, especially in the areas of loyalty to social media services and how often we tend to change or alter our identity. As teens, we are beginning to find our “way” in the world; shape who we are, what we can do and find early independence. as we get older, our careers are more defined and we may have moved to becoming parents and all that that entails. We also found it interesting that the most active period of identity changes came at 14-19.

We broke out the age groups this way because that is the trend the data showed us. We go through periods of more rapid identity change when we are younger than when we’ve settled into careers and other aspects of an older life.

What do you find interesting about this data?

An Uncomfortable Question on Freedom of Speech

The world watched with piqued interest as Tunisians rallied to overthrow their government, success though, seems to be just out of grasp. And social media technologies it would seem, played no small part. Just over a week later, Egypt followed suit. Within two days however, the Egyptian government turned off Internet access in the country. Tunisia did not, interestingly enough. Egypt does however, have a very sophisticated internal security aparatus, likely far more in tune to the possible effects of social technologies and having watched Tunisia and the applied use of social media services.

All of this to say, an uncomfortable question is likely flirting the edges of established democratic Western countries in the minds of the people and their governments – “if this happened to us, would the government shut the Internet down?” and governments saying “is it possible to shut the Internet down?”

This question might be precipitated by the US government’s proposal of Net Neutrality, which in large part would meter Internet access in favour of major content producing corporations that have been battling to stay profitable. In Canada, similar issues arise with metered usage. The people it seems, are not happy. Largely this debate has been about people resisting a return to canned content that they don’t want and an inability to produce their own content.

The Internet grew largely because people wanted to access and create content that was “their own” and to socialize. Arguably, Facebook is a “channel” now, but may become a guide to the future potential of new media powerhouses – provision of a framework for freedom of expression wrapped in a shell that enables economic prosperity.

Western democratic countries will have an incredibly hard time to shut down Internet access, however. The cat is out of the bag and with the technologies readily available on the open markets today, a secondary or third Internet layer would be up in a matter of hours – a rough Mesh Network was up in Egypt in a matter of hours. Governments would have to shut down entire infrastructures. Add to that the many corporations making money from people accessing the Internet and that makes it harder again. That America, Canada or Western European countries would see riots and protests on the scale of Egypt is unlikely. Civil change here would likely be, well, more civil. The well established tenets of democracy and capitalism work in the favor of the people in this case, as it should.

For the paranoid conspiracy wonk these issues are certainly fuel for their fires. The reality however, is likely to be somewhat different. Still, it is an interesting question for both society and government to be asking. The CBC in Canada has asked the question and a quick analysis of the commentary shows people would not be amused should government choose the shut off button. Still, the question is rampant across social media channels in the West and many other countries.

We are beginning to see a rising tide in societal change I suspect, worldwide. One can hope that such actions hits Venezuela to depose despot Chavez or in Zimbabwe to get ride of Mugabe or “Mugarbage” as one sees him called by dissenters. There is an ancient Chinese curse that says “may you live in interesting times”…perhaps that too, could be a blessing for people in Egypt and Tunisia?

Summary of Atlantic Conversations 3 – Social Media in Atlantic Canada

On Sunday, 23 January, I provided some of our key findings in our ongoing monitoring of social media usage in Atlantic Canada. We also monitor the New England states and Southern UK on an ongoing basis.

Here’s the summary points from Atlantic Conversations III:

- Facebook average age edged up from 53 to 55

- We found a 18% increase in Social Media use by Silver Surfers (those above 55)

- LinkedIn is the most popular business network online and we saw a 72% increase in use in 2011

- We noted Twitter is becoming a localized news source/feed

- New Brunswick saw the largest increase overall in citizens using social media

- Nova Scotia saw the largest increase in business blogs over other Atlantic Canadian provinces

- Urban growth issues featured heavily in all major Atlantic Canadian cities; mostly in St. John’s & Halifax

- Political and discussions over societal issues increased 32% over 2009

- Online petitions increased by 28% in 2010 over 2009

- Surprisingly, we found most newspaper site commenters on average, had an undergraduate degree

What Struck Us Most?

Atlantic Canadians, in fact Canadians as a whole, are starting to leverage social technologies for societal change. Moving from “slacktivism” to more that just signing petitions but driving change by physically taking ideas and concepts and moving those agendas forward in civil society. Our view is that governments at all levels should be listening more closely. We anticipate an increase in this direction of social media in 2011.

While the majority of social media use is still entertainment focused and basic familial and social communications, that is changing. This is a pivotal year of a shift in that direction. What may present a challenge is moving from the keyboard to the street and the volume of “noise” may preclude any viable change as the “signal” will be lost in the clutter.

Cyberlingua: The Newest Language

Just thinking out loud here…could English be evolving as the most commonly used online language, that it could be evolving to a new language altogether? Cyberlingua?

Words like “tweetup” or “twushi” or netizen, cyburbia, sockpuppeting, sexting, bexting and others have only come into existence in the last decade or so. Yet the English language, among others, are formed from ancient root languages. English is perhaps the most bastardized and “impure” language of them all. It’s roots are Indo-European, but it mashes German, Nordic, Saxon and French languages among others. Arguably it is the most adaptable language.

Could we be evolving a new language? More textual than spoken I’m thinking.

What are your thoughts?

Who’s Responsible for Personal Privacy?

It’s an issue we find comes up a lot….someone publishes a blog post, that is open to the world, listed by search engines and they push the link on Twitter, FriendFeed and other online services like Digg. Then their boss calls them to task for it, or they get a call from a reporter and they look bad. They balk and say “…but I you weren’t meant to read that…” So. They published it where it is open to anyone in the world who has access to the Internet – roughly 2 billion people. But the boss wasn’t supposed to read it? Really?

Every now and then we get a call from someone in a similar situation. They posted something on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or a blog or similar service and want to know either a) how can they retract it or b) is it legal for their boss etc., to read it?

What this shows is that we still really do not understand or consider, the implications of “what goes online, stays online.” People understand that if they buy a full page ad in a newspaper that says “my boss is an idiot” that it’s probably not going to improve their chances of a promotion. Yet when they publish on a public blog, they are surprised at the same level of repercussion.

Then they are angry at what happens. Yet they made the statement that hurt them, in a public channel…and feel they should be compensated. Right. Perhaps further evidence that people expect someone else to take responsibility for their own actions. If you drive your car at high speed in the wrong direction of traffic and have an accident, that is your fault. Which is why you stay on the right side of the road. It’s as simple as that. It’s the same thing.

I have no doubt it will continue to take several more years until people realize they are as responsible for their actions online as they are when they drive a car. Still, it makes for some interesting news stories.