My online identity

Recently I have got an assignment for Social Media and Society class to find out what my online identity is. At a first glance the task seems pretty easy. Basically you are supposed to type in your “Name Surname” in google and then look through the results you’ll get. Normally there supposed to be a bunch of links containing your personal information. There are also could be images and videos of you. Most of people would certainly see links to their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts as well as other social media tools on a first page. However, that would only work if you have always exposed your personal information on the web. My case is different.

I was born in Russia where we don’t really use Facebook that much, instead there is a similar web site called “Vkontakte”.The name of the website translates to something like “stay connected”.  It is so popular amongst Russians for several reasons. First of all, it gives you access to a lot of content such as movies and TV-shows, music and so on. Let’s not touch the legal aspect of this issue, because it would be enough talk for another blog posting. The website also has so-called communities where people can discuss topics they are interested in or post pictures of their art works to get others opinions on them and so on. Considering the following it’s not a surprise I didn’t have a Facebook account till I turned 18.

That time I went to Italy and met a lot of local people who were not familiar with the Russian social network. After that I had to create a Facebook account to stay in touch with them. However, I didn’t want to use my real surname.  I had never done it before. It always made me feel uncomfortable to expose my personal information to strangers. So I decided to use my grandmother’s surname instead.  Until the time I moved to Canada I didn’t want to share anything personal: my birth date, my interests and likes, anything related to my personal life. . I was basically the complete opposite of a person that Jennifer Golbeck describes in her article “Why We Overshare Online”. The only exclusion I made was for pictures, since I had a lot and didn’t mind showing off a little.

This January I’ve started an online course about the social media and its impact on society. The more I’ve been discovering how useful social media is in real life, the more my views been changing. I started sharing things I’m interested and even updating statuses on Facebook. I also use my Instagram account more often now. I actually enjoy it, since it has helped me to find out some of my friends are way more like-minded with me than I thought before. The biggest step I made was when I finally changed the surname on my Facebook profile to the real one. I started looking for a job and thought my potential employer might want to check my Facebook profile. I think this is a great example how important the online identity is today. Even a person like me who’s very conservative about privacy has to adapt her views in order to do something as essential as getting a job.

Since the change is really fresh, my Facebook profile doesn’t come up on the first page if I search for my “Name Surname”. The same situation is with my Instagram where I don’t even have any reference to my name or surname. I don’t have a Twitter, Tumbler or any other social network accounts. It all comes to one simple conclusion. When I googled my “Name Surname” to find out what my online identity actually is nothing related to me came out. It was literally nothing, neither on the first page nor on the tenth. No videos or images of me.

I have mixed feelings about the absence of my online identity linked to my name. On one hand this is what I wanted. There is nothing linked to my personal information that could disturb my privacy in any way. On the other hand I might miss some chances to improve my life while hiding my online presence. I think the opportunities that the right online image provides are overbalancing the negative aspect of it. Therefore I plan to take an effort to build up an online image I would be proud of. Something I would want to show up when somebody searches for me.

References

Golbeck, J. (2014, October 15). Why we overshare online. [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201410/why-we-overshare-online

Can we actually make the world a better place through the use of social media?

Social media has an undoubtable impact on everyday life of its users. However, when it comes to any political or environmental companions its impact isn’t as clear. There are thousands of petitions to sign or posts to like. Is the purpose of those things the actual change? Or do they only inform people about current events and don’t lead to any real actions?

In my opinion it all depends on a certain campaign. I believe that in most cases an act of participation such as signing petitions online, donating money or just spreading the word about something does change people’s lives. Let’s take a look at the change.org, the website where people can create and sign online petitions. I’ve been using it for over a year and I actually can see how it affects the society. The petitions I’ve signed so far were all in Russian about different political and cultural issues in the country. The most recent petition I’ve signed was about a demolishment of Kazimir Malevich’s house. The artist who’s the most famous work is the “Black Square” used to live and create in a small house in Kursk, Russia.

A week ago the well-known Russian newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda has published an article about the decision to destroy the house of world famous avant-gardist that the government of Kursk has made. The reason why the house was about to be demolished was the high price of the land on its location. The citizens of Kursk have been protesting against the government’s actions for about a month without any result. After unsuccessful attempts to resolve the issue by their own means the citizens of Kursk decided to create a petition on the change.org to save the historical building. By 20.03.2015 there are 26,479 signatures collected of 35,000 signatures needed. I’ve signed the petition as well and have been monitoring all the changes. On 19 of March 2015 the good news came up. Even though there weren’t enough signatures yet, the city’s administration has changed its mind under the pressure of the public. The starter of the petition, Elena Ovsyannikova thanked everyone for their input and emphasized the huge effect of the media on the government’s decision.

I consider this a perfect example of the situation where the social media campaign has brought up some real changes. Malcolm Gladwell in his article “Small Change” states that this kind of activism doesn’t require a real sacrifice from its followers. The question is “does it really matter if it has worked out?” In my opinion it does not. Moreover, I am glad that the problem has been solved without anyone being arrested or pursuit.  Back in time when there was no such thing as social media this case would probably have way less happy ending. I don’t see any problem with the “slacktivism”. If a situation requires more than just social networking actions let people who motivated enough to do something about it to take actions. However, it doesn’t mean that the support that social media offers would do any harm. In fact, as it was mentioned by Malcolm Gladwell social media is a great tool to create awareness. If something, the more people are aware about a case, the lower are chances that government or any other interested organization would take illegal actions to prevent those activist from doing whatever they are doing. Therefore I consider social media campaigns a useful and powerful tool, not just a way for unmotivated people to feel “involved”.  

References

M. Gladwell,"Small change". (2010, October 4^th). Retrieved on 19th of March, 2015 form http://www.newyorker.com/

“Stop the demolishment of the house of Kazimir Malevich”. (2015, March 13^th). Retrieved on 19th of March, 2015 from www.change.org

“The Malevich’s house is about to be demolished in Kursk”. (2015, March 12^th). Retrieved on 19th of March, 2015 from www.kp.ru   

My digital sabbatical experience

The idea of social media sabbatical seemed great to me for a number of reasons. First of all, I’d always wanted to test my willpower to see how long am I going to last without social networking. Also, I was curious whether I would actually get my things done, or I’d just find some other destruction so I could continue procrastinating.

However, it also seemed challenging thing to try, mostly because social networking is such a huge thing in today’s society. When I was about to start my social media sabbatical I was a little worried and I couldn’t figure out why. Now it seems to me that the main reason was that Facebook and other social networks give an individual the feeling of engagement. You get to watch what happens in lives of people you know, it’s extremely addictive. Once you’re not on the social networking tool you feel like you’re missing out.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t completely step out of social networking even for a day. The day I started the digital sabbatical I didn’t do my social networking “routine”. Usually it includes checking my Facebook, e-mail and Instagram. Skipping those procedures wasn’t a big deal to me, mainly because I checked it the evening before. Unluckily, later that day my classmate messaged me some details about the test we are to have next week. I decided it’s important enough to make an exception for and checked my messages. After doing that I felt guilty because my social media sabbatical ended up so fast.

Nevertheless it was done, and I thought maybe I should continue the sabbatical and at least don’t go through my Facebook newsfeed. This basically has become my rule, I allowed myself to check important messages but I couldn’t use social networking in any other way. I knew I was supposed to step away from the Internet completely, but I couldn’t sacrifice my grades or job for that. Therefore I chose to continue this kind of a “light version” of digital sabbatical for the rest of the 48 hours. Another thing I couldn’t ignore were Facebook messages from my parents. Facebook is the only way my family can reach me, since they live in Russia, so I had to respond to them. I found it pointless to tell them about the social media sabbatical because they would be too worried to lose a contact with me.

In my opinion the whole situation here is a certain proof of how much we depend on social media. It’s not only something we use to entertain ourselves, it’s a necessity. Not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing, I can confidently say I’m not able to fully run my daily activities without using it. 

Anyways, as I was continuing sabbatical, I clearly noticed I have way more spare time than I had thought. For example, I used to check social media tools on the bus from work. Since I wasn’t allowed to, I finally started reading a book I downloaded months ago! It felt really strange when I realized how often I postpone small things like that just to check the social media. This part of my observation proves what was said in “A Magical Block of Time: Lessons Learned from my Digital Sabbatical” by Tammy Strobel about how we constantly distract ourselves from what’s actually important for us. The worst part is that we don’t even notice that!

Another thing I agree with that refers to in “A Magical Block of Time: Lessons Learned from my Digital Sabbatical” by Tammy Strobel is her statement about practicing mindfulness on the Internet. I used to get distracted on the Internet really easy, especially using social network tools. Usually “I’ll just check my Facebook messages” turned into an hour and a half of browsing through the stuff my friends posted recently. From now on I’m trying to stay focused on whatever task I’m doing. I also started avoiding all the negative content as it ruins my optimistic mind set.    

In conclusion, the social media sabbatical is definitely worth trying. It helped me to improve my time management skills by simply reducing the time spent on the social networks. It also gave me an opportunity to see how easy it is to complete things you want to do when you’re not being constantly distracted by social networking. I will certainly keep managing my social networking habits so I could have more spare time for my hobbies and studies.

The purpose of this blog

Hello everyone!

I created this blog so I could share my experience of the digital sabbatical. I'm going to reduce the amount of social networking and other Internet activities as much as I can. I can't promise I'm not going to use it at all, since some of my learning and working everyday routine requires me to use social media tools sometimes. However, I will try my best to avoid wasting my time in the web unless it's for a good reason.

Wish me luck!