Identity Crisis: Who are you on Twitter?
Posted on August 20, 2008
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“Technologies don’t become socially interesting until they become technologicaly boring.” - Clay Shirkey
If you’re a Twitter user you’ll know what I’m talking about when I ask “Who are you on Twitter?” Are you an employee of the company you work for, are you a friend of your followers, are you a source of information that functions like a newswire, are you a character in your own memoir being written 140 characters at a time? Maybe you swing back and forth between several persona during the day or on weekends? Have you ever caught yourself about to post something and stopped yourself because while one audience (your friends, for example) might really like what you were about to post your boss might not have? Or maybe you’ve been posting away from a conference and suddenly realized that you’ve bored half your followers to death because they’re not at the event and could care less what you’re blathering on about. Or maybe you’re one of those folks who just doesn’t care and you post what you like when you like. More power to you. The rest of us are trying to juggle a balance of self-expression, self-marketing, and keeping our jobs.
I’d like to say that, as some kind of social media guru, I have an answer to this conundrum but I don’t. What I do have, however, are some more questions about what the problem implies that I think are pretty darn interesting. The socially interesting part is that what Twitter has done is make us realize that at any given moment we’re lots of different people with lots of different voices and audiences but because it’s a pain to try to have several different Twitter accounts, we’ve been forced to lump all of our identities into one channel and that creates conflict.
Sure we could all move over to another microblog that let’s us group our followers together into audiences so we could post work-related stuff to just our work-related followers but I think that’s a cop out. I think that the identity conflict on Twitter says more about who we are than how the technology functions. Really folks, why can’t we all be ourselves? It’s naive, I know. Common sense would tell us not to post anything that we couldn’t just say out loud. You wouldn’t stand up in your cube and just shout “My boss is a jerk! If he asks me to stay late one more time I’m going to snatch his fake hair and shove it down his throat” (is that 140 characters or less?) so why would you post it to Twitter? Well, in some sense, Twitter is like that third-place. If your boss isn’t on Twitter it can function as a little back channel vent through out the day that keeps you from flinging the gum-popping intern in the next cube out the window. But this use implies that you don’t identify what you do or where you work and if your boss finds out about Twitter…well you’re done for. And God forbid someone get API-excited in your office and start aggregating all the in-house Twitter post onto some page that everyone can see! Yikes! That’s worse than trying to explain the huge stack of Post-its in your purse that should be in the supply cabinet.
So what’s the solution? Do we split our identities along application lines? Do we just let it all hang out and thumb our nose at the establishment who might not like what we have to say? Do we become an establishment who allows people to be who they are and benefits from their uncensored feedback?
What do you think?
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16 Responses to “Identity Crisis: Who are you on Twitter?”
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This is indeed a great post.
I think about it all the time, because we work on ID management and ‘context identities’ as we call it for ourselves.
Where’s the line between ‘privacy’ and disgusting two-faced cynicism flooding the Internet… you know what I mean, don’t you?
You nailed it right. It’s about society and it’s culture.
I just have to be me. Sometimes I might delete a post immediately after updating, more often before, thank goodness. Mostly my workmates just see a side of me they wouldn’t normally. My personal friends see what I work on and think about professionally, if they care. I know I would hate to miss out on learning those things shared by workmates here. If we help each other once in a while, that’s gravy!
Well, if you don’t have answers then I’m surely lost. I often ask myself these same questions before I post a note on Twitter. Some of my followers are colleagues at work, some are friends, and some I “know” only through Twitter. I do feel that working at a university allows me a bit more freedom in my posts, but sometimes I have radical ideas that others may not feel comfortable with.
I don’t want to keep separate accounts for professional and personal posts and I don’t feel any desire to “hide” anything. I’m the same person all the time, so why should I need to divide my life? So, for now, I’m just posting what I feel like saying, when I feel like it. Of course, I don’t think any one listens to me anyway
If you do find an answer to this, please share.
I think ‘identity *crisis*’ is too strong - but I agree that some acknowledgment of this new environment and possibly some modification of behaviour probably is necessary.
I don’t have this ‘problem’ (yet) on Twitter - because Twitter isn’t mainstream enough for my particular group of friends to have joined yet.
I do have the exact same problem on Facebook, where I have both friends/family and colleagues as ‘friends’ and where I aggregate all my blog postings (from 3 blogs - work, personal and Second Life), my photos and various other stuff as Facebook notes, etc.
In the real world we don’t, typically, go to the pub with our friends family and colleagues all at the same time - yet this is pretty much exactly what we are now doing the digital equivalent of online.
So my friends/family see my work and Second Life blog posts and are mostly bemused (actually, that’s true of most people who see my blog posts!) and my work colleagues see my holiday snaps and other photos.
I can’t think of any occasion when I’ve felt like modifying/hiding stuff to take account of this divide and would like to think it won’t happen. That said, I have taken an explicit decision not to surface my Twitter tweets within Facebook so far because I quite like the fact that, while I know that they are not totally private, chances are they are only being read by my Twitter followers by and large. I can think of one or two occasions where I’ve tweeted something that I probably would not have said in a more obviously public arena.
In the main, I see this cross-over as being very powerful in exposing a more rounded view of people, particularly colleagues, particularly remote colleagues and I haven’t yet had a “I wish I hadn’t said or done that” moment (or seen one from any of my ‘friends’). And the benefits of that exposure cut both ways - showing more of the real me to colleagues and more of the working me to friends/family. All in all, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
That aggregation is exactly what we are trying to do with our Twitterspaces project. There is great power in transparency, and public display of public posts can have a unifying and strengthening effect on a community.
The “can’t we all be ourselves?” comment is very appropriate to describe one of the big long-term impacts of microblogging: the realization, finally, that what you say online has many contexts. There isn’t anything wrong with shielding parts of your life or taking advantage of the computer mediation to be anonymous, or intentionally assume another identity. But it is work, ultimately, and something microblogging isn’t good at shielding. One of my own future blog posts is a map of how what I say in Twitter gets propagated into other systems, and vice versa. This is no longer a world (if it ever was) of one blog, one post.
I do have multiple Twitter accounts, but only for research purposes to embody an identity other than my own but of which I’m a part. I’m not using a photo for a profile icon at the moment, but I have in the past (I like to only change them once a year). My interest in Twitter is largely in identifying local people, many of whom I didn’t know when I followed them and may still not have met offline. Outside of geography, my followers are overwhelmingly people I already know.
Andy: You, as always, bring up great points. I think less about FB than I probably should and since my Twitters show up as my FB status, that throws another wrench in the identity confusion. Context means so much for most of this kind of content and I often wonder whether tweets are interpreted differently when they’re shoved into other spaces like FB.
I couldn’t agree more with your idea that what we’re doing is sharing more of who we are. I’m glad that I’m not just a faceless blogger or academic…etc. I like knowing that someone I admire has hobbies etc.
Intellagirl
I don’t think this is a problem with just twitter, you could really break this out and see that this is a problem with the human condition. Think about it, we grow up molding into this persona, then go to college and try something new, then graduate only to try something different…each time taking a small piece with us.
Our struggle with identity will always occur, if not on the outside, def on the inside. We yearn for people to know us and like us.
Twitter provides another outlet for people - often not all of the outlets we need, but I think it is important that we represent not an ‘online persona’ but we represent ourselves. I post what is on my mind at the moment. I post who I am in reality…does that mean i still filter…duh…I filter in reality too…if I didn’t I might be in prison.
I just won’t post something that’s not me or that I think I’ll have to waste time explaining to someone else later without a valid reason.
Under the moniker “brandologist” I’m clearly representing business, both my employer and my own consulting gig. I also know that unless you’re about being the lowest cost provider, you’re about relationship. So, I look at Twitter as another way of expressing personal brand out when one can’t be everywhere all the time.
I’m very new to Twitter, too, so some of my current use is really about experimentation. I was thinking over the weekend about how I should start framing my Tweets. I haven’t concluded much except that I’m not going to say or do anything that I wouldn’t in a group of people I know. And that I will be true to myself.
Couple other thoughts: Twitter seems like a great way for introverts to contribute. Twitter also seems like a great place for people with blurting issues to get themselves in trouble. So, someone who is an introvert who typically can control blurting in a face to face situation might have to work in a completely different way to keep blurting under control on Twitter.
Excellent post on questions I find myself facing quite often.
I came to Twitter before my employer, Dell, did and while many representatives of our company tweet with the “XYZatDell” moniker, I’ve kept my original @LPT identity. Partially because I tweet both personal and work-related things. Also, partially because LPT is my personal brand that will go with me no matter who my employer is at any moment in my career.
My manager is on Twitter, my coworkers are all over it, heck even my boss’ boss’ boss is on Twitter; so, I’m very aware that as you point out, I won’t tweet anything I wouldn’t be cool yelling out in my cube. And, even though none of my family is on Twitter (yet), I’m conscious that these tweets live on forever in Google search, so I better be sure I’m ok with them seeing anything I vent about them.
That all said, I do pretty much try to just be me on Twitter - and any current or future employers, friends or family who can’t handle me as me, well … who’d want them?
I just focus on being myself - honestly. And always trying to be aware I am micropublishing. That means make each one (unless its a convio) able to stand on its own.
I think I am able to deal with the multiple persona issue because it is so micro. If it wasn’t tagging and contextualization would be VERY necessary.
As it is I treat twitter like a really good cocktail party that I pop my head into on occasion and chat with people.
Cheers,
Silona
I have three thoughts.
I post personal and professional tweets and have tweeps that I’ve met in meatspace and those that I haven’t. The end result has been that I’ve connected more personally with a number of professional colleagues, and a few folks from my personal life know a little more about my professional life.
I have caught myself thinking twice about what I’m posting given that an increasing number of colleagues at work have started tweeting. However, I think that’s more a function of having the good sense to mind what you say in what should be assumed to be a public forum than it is a new dilemma posed by Twitter.
I wonder to what extent people segregate their different social networks/identities by application. For example, I’ve been encountering professional colleagues in Facebook, and I’ve sometimes hesitated - thinking that I already have Twitter, LinkedIn and others that I use for professional networks, why not keep Facebook for my personal network? The implication of that I think, hits upon a question/issue I’ve heard asked more than a few times, most recently by Matt Croslin at EduGeek Journal. If a learner wants to keep their different “hats” separate, what happens if/when faculty are trying to integrate social networks into formal learning environments, as more than a few seem to suggest we should? While using Facebook in a course may, as many may advocate, “go where our students are going,” Matt may be right. If students’ have the opinion of “keep your class out of my Facebook” then aren’t attempts to integrate social networks into learning spaces simply creating a situation where learners are awkwardly forced (a) to refuse class participation or (b) to allow a class to infringe upon their personal space?
Twitter definitely has the effect of putting too many folks in potential view of the looking glass! I mean, not that they are r-e-a-l-l-y all looking and judging me vis-a-vis the face I try to give them vs. the one they percieve from my general tweets. But I certainly play games with MYSELF trying to imagine just WHAT face they think I am showing and how they judge it. As a result I don’t tweet so much. Instead I use various digital identities in my digital life:
For work stuff I am ccosmato@radford
For personal stuff I am charley.cosmato
For experimental stuff and creative stuff I am chaz maloney
Ironically I have no problem, in this strange age, letting people know that I actively maintain these three seperate identities. It helps me focus my digital life and I think it helps other netizens follow the parts of my life that is useful to them .
chaz maloney has been blogged about, appeared at Edmedia,does fun techno-cool stuff and takes risks
ccosmato@radford is a good worker and contributes to the home team
charley.cosmato has a family and friends and frequently shares glimpses of his RL namesake to these people.
Anyway, I am looking forward to meeting Intellagirl at the ECVA in Blacksburg.
Cheers,
Charley,Chaz,ccosmato,charley.cosmato
I just have a couple private message boards I am on with friends I never have to really explain stuff to. So, that’s where I do my ranting or stuff I wouldn’t want someone to dig up later.
Anything that I say publicly online, I would say to someone’s face and in a similar manner. As much as it’s a virtual world, it’s totally real and I just think about how I would act before we had the internet.
Wonderful post. These are the kinds of essential *social* questions I wish people would address around social media.
Like many people these days I wear different hats and represent different things to different people.
Conversely, I have different boundaries and feelings of connection or disconnection with the people who engage and follow me. Increasingly, I’ve been feeling more unsure about sharing so much of myself online and decided to start privatising my feeds. So my sharing is “tiered”
1. Tier one (public feed):
Largely RSS and a small amount of back and forth. Geared to public discussion around items of interest to me. This is more like microblogging.
2. Tier two (private feed):
Direct interaction, conversational exchange, some or no RSS (I may wish to have more private conversations around the items I’ve shared).
Here’s my advice to the “identity” challenged (who also care about privacy):
1. Subscription only feeds
Where’s your Twitter data being aggregated? How many other sites are collecting your feed? Unless you know the answer to this, you might consider making your feed subscription only.
By default, I have made all of my feeds subscription only because I don’t want them aggregated throughout the internet. We’re still not sure what kind of legacy all this data will produce so I say we should really be taking more caution around the distribution of our activities, associations and identity with micro content.
2. One totally private - friends only - feed
It’s a really good idea to create one (or more) small private feeds for people you wish to engage more openly - and as a whole person.
3. Create a social media policy
People are making far too many assumptions about what are shared principles and practices with social media. For example, that it’s just polite to follow somebody back (even if you don’t know them or have an interest in their expression). There is NO social contract for social media. Right now, it’s far too subjective. So I removed some of the mystery and created a DIY social media policy (it’s a personal policy - not a set of rules for others). If the makers of these tools can have policies, so should the users who give those tools value.
http://melaniemcbride.net/2008/04/06/diy-social-media-policy/
I do not believe we can truly be *whole* people yet online. Given the presence of malcontents and trolls, given the privacy and surveillance issues and given the mentality of laggard/traditionalist employers and HR departments, it’s simply not possible for most ordinary people (power holders have a different relation to self expression - they can get away with more than ordinary people for whom the stakes of “sharing” may have more detrimental consequences).
That’s how I’ve handled this “identity” crisis.
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Twitter.com/melmcbride
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