 Be Yourself! by Joel Tucker America Online lets users specify up to five screen names. A screen name works as an email address, and also identifies the user to others during online activities. Other online services offer similar features. The point is to give each member of a household a separate identification on the same account. Child accounts can be set up with age-specific restrictions. Everyone gets his or her own email account, log-on id and password. It’s like having five accounts for the price of one. In practice, however, one person might set up several ids for different purposes. You might have one id for personal correspondence, another for business. More often, people set up different accounts to hide their true identities while they misbehave online. The Internet is a strange mix of anonymous activity and detailed documentation. AOL policy states that it will never reveal the real name behind the screen name. You can pretend to be anyone or anything. But at AOL, someone has access to computer records that reveal exactly who you are, what you view, what you say, and what you pretend to be. The competition is fierce for email marketing software. The prized feature of these mass mailing programs is how well they hide the sender’s identity. After all, if no one can find you to hold you accountable, you can say and sell anything you want without risking your reputation. Fake ids, fraud, disguises and pretentiousness are nothing new, but Internet technology takes them to a new level. Much of this activity is “harmless” fantasy – in quotes, because few people measure the cost of wasted time. Most people downplay the power of their alter-egos to influence and persuade. And some of this anonymous activity is intentionally fraudulent, a facade designed to influence others to spend money or otherwise act to their own detriment. Anonymous activity on or off the Internet short-circuits the conscience. It widens the gap between our public and private personas. It makes us believe our Mr. Hydes can paint the town without tarnishing Dr. Jekyl’s lofty reputation. On the Internet, people broadcast to the world information they would never share face-to-face. Others who browse this information wouldn’t be caught dead flipping through such material at a public newsstand. The face we wear in public is a pretty good reflection of who we want to be. Our best face is our public persona, the one that reveals our true name and address. That’s the one that we want attached to our best efforts. It makes sense, then, that if we want to improve ourselves, contribute to society and build something meaningful, we should spend more time wearing that public face. We should stop looking for untraceable email programs and focus on writing notes we aren’t ashamed to sign. We should stop creating cute screen names and start behaving online as if the whole world were watching. Maybe this desire for anonymity is a normal reaction to the global visibility of the Internet. But consider the power of someone who combines, rather than separating, his online and offline identities. Consider the credibility of an online marketer who is not ashamed to stake his real reputation on the product. And consider how much cleaner the Internet would be if someone was willing to publicly stand behind the content of every web site. It’s easy to be evil if you wear a hood or hide behind a cryptic email address. It takes integrity to stand behind everything you do and say. The Internet is a glass house, which is why so many people disguise themselves before walking through it. It’s your window on the world, and the world’s window on you. Be yourself, your best self, online and off. Don’t let your demons out to play; it just encourages them to grow and multiply. Keep them bottled up, and they’ll shrivel into curious tributes to integrity and self-control.
Send your questions or comments by mail to this newspaper or by e-mail to jt@bootup.com. |
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