Well, I thought I’d start with a mini-post to begin exploring my digital identity and question whether this is something I want to do? Have to do? Or just do?
I began last night by taking a picture of myself…..truth be told, I took a selfie and decided I didn’t like the reverse image of myself and enlisted my 16-year-old (of-course,-way-tech-savyer-than-I) daughter to take a forward picture of me to upload.
I then made a list of all the media types I engage with on a regular basis. It started with 1. Email and ended with 18. U.S. Mail. The items on the list could be categorized using some of the suggested dichotomies: Personal/Professional; Visitor/Resident; Frequent/Infrequent. Then, I started thinking about the purpose of some of these media: Information; Recreation; Communication; Organization; Politics; Commerce.
Finally, I asked myself what type of identity I need to have, want to have, or just have? Do I have more than one identity over these several platforms? Is my in-person identity similar to any of the online identities? And where does blogging fit in?
You are asking all the right questions here Maggie. Of course you will be the only one who can answer them for yourself. We provide a space for longer form reflection during DigPINS because we do think that is important as people progress through the readings and activities from different contexts. If you haven’t yet seen Maha Bali’s post on blogging over on the AUC DigPINS site you can check it out here https://auc.digpins.org/week-0-posts/ideas-for-your-first-blogpost/
Now the question of if you will continue to blog after DigPINS is another topic all together. There are a ton of different approaches with some doing more of a stream of consciousness thing and others being more polished. I think either can be helpful and a good addition to your digital identity. Some of this also comes into play next week when we start talking about networks. Your question here “do I even blog?” is a great one and I think you find it will be informed by another – “who are the others that will even read what I write?”
I’m one of those readers. At least today I am.