I have two Twitters, three email addresses, two RSS feeds (through my two Google accounts) and two blogs. If I could get away with having more than one Facebook, I probably would. Our class has discussed these communication tools at length, and more times than not, conclude that these are great ways to reach a large number of people in a relatively small amount of time. Instead of calling a dozen friends for a movie, I can send a single email (or Facebook message). Instead of spending half an hour on the phone with each of my friends from home, I can send out short messages on Twitter.
But sometimes reaching a large number of people is a problem. I've had a Twitter for about a month now, but I recently set up a second account to stay in touch with my parents. Why? Well, the first Twitter is for a few close friends, and sometimes has updates like "I think I failed that test" or "That was a great concert" (posted at 3 am) -- both things I don't want my parents to see. The same goes for my email addresses: one is for school/professional contacts, one is for websites and acquaintances, and one is for close friends. And while the blog I'm updating right now is for my HONR229F seminar, "New Media Frontiers;" I have an entirely different one for writing about music. ...So even though I started out with one Twitter, one email address, and one blog, I've found that I have to add different versions of the same tools depending on my "audience."
The necessity of creating multiple online personas is no more clearly demonstrated than in the case of Facebook. Time and time again, we college students hear, "Be careful what you put on Facebook, employers can and will find your profile." While I don't have any innappropriate photos up, I've deleted several wall comments because a well-meaning friend hinted at something I'd rather keep private. Creating one internet profile that all the world can see solves a lot of the old problems, but also creates new ones.
Likewise, communicating through multiple Twitters, emails, and blogs can get confusing. It's a hassle to constantly sign in and out of Twitter, and when I feel like procrastinating, it's pretty tempting to rotate through my various email inboxes. And I'm not the only one; most of my good friends (you know, the ones I write to from email address #3) do the same thing.
What I find really interesting: even though all these communication tools aim to reconcile our contacts into one all-inclusive, "convenient" social network, we still naturally separate people into categories.
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Hm.... don't forget that different sites let you connect with people who have similar interests! Isn't that cool? Even though the evil Internet people try to sell you stuff based on stuff you search....
ReplyDeleteI can show you how to get and send email all from your gmail account (and still keep your three inboxes separate) if you'd like.
ReplyDeleteBut then again if you like logging into three separate accounts depending on your audience, and not being distracted by email from different accounts, then that is a fine way of doing it too.