I’ve recently been plagued by a dilemma.
I have an (somewhat active) online presence which is scattered over
numerous blogs, social media sites, service et cetera et cetera. So
far, I’ve been using a particular online persona/name for these. As
these are increasingly becoming demanding more and more person-ification
or in other words, reflect the person that I am in real life — I am
faced with the question: does it have any meaning left anymore to try
to have some sort of anonymity on the web or to embrace it with my real
name and all the works…
I’ve been using the net since 1998 or so, and most of the people on the net used to be anonymous. Back then, an online introduction in a chat room would start with the inevitable (and loaded) a/s/l and nicknames were as good as real names as long as they were unique…
Now as more and more people start revealing their photos, names, addresses, phone numbers and start using the web services in close proximity with the Real Life — I’m feeling somewhat uncomfortable in letting my online identities to just let go and replace them with the Real Me.
Does anyone else feel like this?
