By Shell C How many social network identities do you have? Are they all the same? How do you decide how much to disclose on them, and do you even really have a choice? These are questions I grapple with daily, as I’m trying to build up a professional profile while still connecting with friends and family about our day-to-day lives.
Multiple digital identities?
The first thing I need to examine is what I’m looking for in relation to my online identity. Syed et al. (2019) identified five fundamental objectives underpinning what individuals value when managing their online identities. The one that stood out for me was identity integrity. This encompassed ensuring the online identity was authentic but also the ability to separate multiple “digital-selves” (Syed et al., p.510). When I look at my digital identities, it’s not about having different selves so much as having different facets of myself I want to show for each purpose.
“File:Light dispersion of a mercury-vapor lamp with a flint glass prism IPNr°0125.jpg” by D-Kuru is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 
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The multiple facets I try to show include my professional identities of business analyst and clinical psychologist, my public face as a traveller sharing our adventures, and my several private personas such as mother, partner, activist, youth leader, student and person-who-has-an-opinion-about-everything. That’s an awful lot of presentations to juggle, and I’m not the juggler of the family. That would be my partner, Brendan, who will juggle anything.
I try to present each facet on a different forum. My professional (mostly business analyst) persona is presented on Linked In. Then I have a YouTube channel where I am creating public content about business analysis, psychology, travelling, etc. My Instagram is a bit of a mashup of the personal and public. It is on my personal Facebook account where I am a mother, stepmother, partner, traveller and youth leader. That’s also where I expose my political beliefs. This brings us to the next point, which is the crux of the question for me: how much do I disclose in each facet?
To disclose or not to disclose?
I don’t disclose the same information on every forum: far from it. But how do I decide what to disclose in each forum? Is it to do with how risky I view disclosure on each platform, or is it about something else?
Aboulnasr et al. (2022) investigated factors influencing disclosure. Using an online survey, the authors examined the links between identification with the platform, perception of risks and benefits of disclosure, and actual disclosure. As expected, the study found stronger identification was associated with more disclosing, as well as with perceiving more benefits and less risks. What was interesting was that, although although people who perceived more benefits disclosed more, there was no evidence seeing more risks associated with disclosing led to less disclosing.
Infographic made by me using Canva and a template by Rafiico Studio
This finding surprised me until I thought about my own behaviour. I go to some lengths to protect my real identity in online forums. Sometimes this is just by changing my surname and having a photo taken from a distance on the public-facing profile, such as with Facebook, but other times I will create an email address especially for the platform so it shouldn’t be linked to my other personas, such as with my YouTube channel.
Infographic made by me using Canva
When I really think about it, the only forum in which I use my real full name, and have a public profile picture that is recognisable, is Linked In. It’s also the only place where people can see my current and former workplaces. Is this because I see less risks from disclosing this information on Linked In? Not really. Linked In actually feels a little more vulnerable.
If it’s not about perceiving less risks, what is it about? For me, I think it’s about the utility of the disclosure. A profile which has vague references isn’t going to help me get a job. I need people to know what I can do, what I have done, and they need to know it’s me. On Facebook, however, the vast majority of the people I am “friends” with already know me in real life so it doesn’t matter if they can’t see my face or my surname doesn’t match (it does, occasionally, lead to “Hey, you got married, congratulations!”). For those with whom I publicly interact, who will just see the false name and the vague picture, it certainly doesn’t matter at all if they never know who I really am – that’s kind of the point.
Of course there are other things to consider about disclosure, and measures I take. These include waiting until we are home from our trip before posting photos, so that no-one breaks into our house. However, if we are talking specifically about identity, I think that’s the difference for me: The amount and aspect of myself I show depends on what serves the objectives of that online presence. It’s not a straightforward path to navigate, but I’m getting there.
References
Aboulnasr, K., Tran, G. A., & Park, T. (2022). Personal information disclosure on social networking sites. Psychology & Marketing, 39(2), 294–308. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21595
Syed, R., Dhillon, G., & Merrick, J. (2019). The Identity Management Value Model: A Design Science Approach to Assess Value Gaps on Social Media. Decision Sciences, 50(3), 498–536. https://doi.org/10.1111/deci.12335