CC #1

Digital Identity?Personal versus professional approaches to digital identity?

Before finishing the reading about digital identity, I thought of it as information about someone’s social media, such as a username or a post. However, now I think it is much broader than just a username or a post. It is created through what we follow, like, and comment on, and the groups or communities that we join online. Eric Stollers ‘ video on What is digital identity? made me think more about our presence on the internet. It is shaped by what we post, what we like and the way we communicate with each other basically everything we do on internet is conritubuting towards the digital identity.

I think there is a difference between personal and professional digital identities. As for personal Social Media, people would feel more comfortable and post things about their hobbies, Vacation pictures, Political opinions and day-to-day experiences. I think the main reason that personal social media is more casual because people feel more free to express themselves and to stay connected with friends and family.

. While on professional platforms such as LinkedIn, the same person would be posting different things, such as posting about a new skill/certification they achieved, their educational achievements, projects, hackathons, work experience or career goals. People choose to be more careful about what they are posting on professional accounts, as the audience on such platforms could be potential recruiters, professors, or co-workers. However, personal and professional identities can overlap, so what we share personally can also affect how others see us professionally.

digital platforms are students currently using to develop their professional network?

As a computer Science student, I think like me mostly use LinkedIn to build our professional network and connections. We update our LinkedIn profiles by posting about our most recent certification, skills learned or new projects that we just finished. And we also use it to connect with companies and recruiters when we look for our first internship or full-time job. In computer science, most of the students share their GitHub as well to display their projects and contributions to the audience. For more professional communication, I have seen students using University Outlook accounts instead of personal emails. This feels more appropriate for connecting with professors and companies. Overall, these are the few platforms that help students to make connections outside the classroom.

Reference

Stoller, E. (2016, November 25). What is digital identity? [Video]. University of Derby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0RryRbJza0