As I have blogged before, mediated social identity raises complex issues. And so it is fitting that I share with you a recent experience that has impacted upon my ability to enjoy the relative freedom of navigating across various digital media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube to name but few!).

Somewhere between a latent introduction to a ‘friend’ of a ‘friend’, or lets just describe this as an introduction to a spurious network link, the how I lived my life out ‘online’ had suddenly become overly visible and accessible. Contact from this one individual crossed nearly all my Web 2.0 profiles and points of contact and gone from ‘annoying’ (roll or eyes) to amounting what one friend described as ‘harassment’ (gritting of teeth) in response to incoming messages. Thankfully the situation is now (nearly) resolved, but this in my mind has opened up some debates about user identity and the ‘exposure’ of social profiles across various social platforms.

The dilemma is like this: You want to be ‘findable’, ‘searchable’ and ultimately contactable to various networks of links whether they are informal ‘friends’ or more formal business connections. This means that your profile stands in for You, and cultivates a social presence in your physical absence. However, the same You does not want to be so ‘open’ that you leave yourself over-exposed and prey to nut jobs, odd jobs, or just annoying jobs.

Ironically part of my ‘expertise’ is the management of mediated social connections and interactions that I pride myself in being able to cultivate and maintain in a fluid and savvy manner (check out the Facebook Etiquette blog). BUT, where all the manners and safe guards in the world come apart is when someone is out to consistently and rather ruthlessly target you.

Thankfully there are strategies that can (and have in my case) be employed: Re-calibrating your privacy settings on SNS’s so that you can only be searched by specific networks and/or contacted only through ‘trusted’ and ‘validated’ friend requests is one way. Another could be to limit the information that is displayed on the profile: Mobile phone number(s), personal email, home address all off, off, off! Not that mine had any of these.

So where does this leave us?
Too concerned to share identifiable points of contact, OR are we just in need of a greater awareness about associated privacy decisions, complexities and social relationships. Lets not forget that we make, and are used to making, these kinds of judgements on a daily basis in our ‘offline’ lives (you cross the road to avoid that ‘weirdo’ right). Perhaps then this is really about social context where the privacy considerations that include security, social disclosure, visibility, identity and convenience all need to be treated with the same intuitive and context-aware instincts online as they do offline…

So are we all ‘over-exposed’ or is this a matter of personal taste, comfort and in/ability?
An interesting aspect to my own research is the willingness of younger generations to share with one another the ‘who’ and ‘where’ they are at all times. Something those of my fathers generation do not feel at all comfortable with or are used to.

I’m going to continue to investigate further into this these issues and look for distinct patterns…

Meanwhile my advice, play it ‘safe’ out there. Or the chick gets it!

Chick Pic: LluisGerard’s photos Flickr

About Dr Mariann Hardey

I hold the position of Lecturer in Social Media Marketing at Durham Business School. I also spend too much time enjoying social technologies, media+ stuff. That'll make me a Geek then. And a gal.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Research, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.