Would you disclose your internet persona to your family members?

Canada
June 24, 2007 1:21pm CST
As the internet has become commonplace, many people have developed a dual personality, talk about a new era form of schizophrenia. We generally forget the socially correct factor when we post on our blogs or on discussion forums. At those moments, we are just graving for freedom and are willing to post the most intimate and thus embarrassing things about ourselves. On the internet, we are faceless and nameless, we just need to express ourselves. We stick to some virtual communities and meet, so to speak, some virtual friends. Today, I was thinking of sending my blog's URL to my family, then I said to myself, hold on, I use spiderman05 in a consistent way on many forums and I am not sure that my family members would like to read some of the messages I have wrote. A sort of keeping my real life persona and virtual one apart. Do you use the same handle when you register to different internet forums? Do you have an internet persona? Are your family members or your friends aware of you alter personality?
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2 responses
• United States
24 Jun 07
I usually use the same username no matter where I post. I don't feel like I have an alter personality except that I am probably friendlier and less easily bothered/angered online than in real life. My family and friends are aware of most of the things that I post. Now, I wouldn't want my co-workers to read a lot of the things that I post because I do a lot of griping online about them.
• Canada
24 Jun 07
It is funny that you are friendlier online than in real life. In some of the communities I belong to, people tend to be friendlier in real life than in virtual life.
1 person likes this
@anonymili (3138)
30 Jun 07
I tend to keep this persona separate from my other online identity where I chat with my real life friends online such as msn or yahoo or facebook. I come here to help others and ask for advice on issues I might have with my real life and/or something about a friend or family member. I really wouldn't want them to know I was discussing it here regardless of the fact that no one knows who I am referring to. So like you I have a separate internet persona and I intend to keep it separate. x
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• Bulgaria
11 Sep 07
I guess that my Internet persona is slightly different from my real life one. Also, sometimes on the Net I am disclosing details I would hardly tell if speaking in person. Maybe this is just because of the anonymity. In any case, I know pretty well that everything I have written on the Net can be used against me, if they know who I am, so maybe this imposes a kind of auto-censorship. I use different nicknames, so it will be really hard for somebody to find all my postings and make a true picture of me. :)
1 person likes this