What is Online Identity?
Definition
Online identity is simply what it sounds like. Your identity online is how you present yourself digitally. The things you post, the pictures you share, and the people you interact with all impact your online identity.
Why is it Important?
It’s important to consider your online identity for many reasons; a couple being: what you post stays online forever and it is observed by potential employers. It is crucial to ensure that you are representing yourself as you truly are, while also keeping your online identity detached from you personally; essentially you don’t have to post your every thought online. This website shares the importance of maintaining your online identity and provides some tips for managing: Online Persona.
My Online Identity
Googling Myself
A good way to see your presence online is to simply Google your name. After Googling my name, I did not find anything that relates to myself. I found other people with the same name, but nothing for me personally. This is probably be attributed to the fact that aside from Facebook and Instagram, I don’t have much social media or online presence. Also, when creating usernames I tend to use simply my first initial and last name, which could lead to me not having much of a presence.
Searching Myself on Social Media
Since I couldn’t find myself on Google, I decided to take it a step further and search my name on social media, specifically Facebook and Instagram. When searching for myself on Facebook, I found my profile very quickly and found all of my pictures and posts, despite me having my account pretty private and directed towards ‘Friends Only.’ This led me to quickly alter my account to be unviewable by the public, aside from my profile photo, as online privacy is important to me. When searching for myself on Instagram, I couldn’t find my account. This is what I had assumed would happen, as my username is a nickname of mine, as opposed to my full name.
Why did I pick this Domain Name?
My domain name is pretty simple; I picked amkincaid.net. This is simply my first and middle initial, along with my last name. I didn’t really want my first and last name as the website name, since it seems less private, so I chose my initials as a way to ensure it’s more private. I also decided to include my middle initial, since four out of five people in my family are ‘A. Kincaid.’
