I just completed a project on identity and how we mediate it in online spheres. (It was a graduate project for a class on Hypertext. Check it out at Mediating My Selves.) This is something that’s increasingly important for scholar-writers in the age of the Internet. While I’m not sure my project reached any definite conclusions, I definitely have reached some new perspectives in my own thoughts about identity. For example, someone who has contradictory identities in different online spaces isn’t necessarily a hypocrite or a bad person in my book.
But, what I think and what the powers-that-be think are very different, as evidenced by this:
http://crookedtimber.org/2010/05/14/an-internet-where-everyone-knows-youre-a-dog/
Do social media require us to have only a single identity? No reworking for context allowed?
Erin Clark Frost 
Hi Erin,
I do believe we show different sides of our personalities in an online setting. I take care to not whine overly much because I’m trying to break into publishing and am careful of my image. When I’m with fellow writers or friends (in person), I’m more open.
To be honest I still have a social Facebook and a social networking facebook. I wonder how I can conjoin the two? Hmm…
Jill, that sounds really smart. I try to do the same, but I feel like I have so many different audiences on Facebook that I really struggle to post anything that no one will be annoyed by!
T.Anne, I think that’s a real challenge! Let me know if you find an answer! I’ve heard Facebook will be introducing new privacy settings soon, which may help.
I try to be more me on Facebook where mostly my family and friends and close writer friends meet. On my blog, I show who I am cause let’s admit, we all want to know real people but I also try to be professional as well there.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. Your link didn’t show so I couldn’t get back to you until I found you on Jeanette’s.
Erin:
I think social media works best when we accurately reflect ourselves on all fronts.
Let me know if you meet someone who has mastered that art. I’d like to shake their hand.
I’m a different person at work than at home than at church than on Facebook than on my blog than on my phone. I try to be nice, but I don’t always manage it. I’ve still got too much of me left and not enough of Jesus.