Personality, cyberspace & technology - are we the same online and in person?

This week’s assignment included taking a personality test. I don’t think that anyone who knows me would be shocked to find out that I scored rather high in extraversion (88), agreeableness (91), contentiousness (92) and open-mindedness (83). I even hit 100 percent in some of the sub categories – sociability, compassion, respectfulness and responsibility. I thought the test was a fairly accurate depiction of my personality and I think my friends and family would agree (though some might argue I should have scored higher than 81 percent in “energy level.” I think that’s because they see me after I’ve had coffee). Not surprisingly I scored only 12 percent on negative emotionality. I tend to be a glass half-full person, so that seems to fit with my perspective on life.

I’ve been described as someone who is always smiling, is energetic, fast-paced, bubbly and talkative (perhaps too much so on that last one). I enjoy interacting with and learning about other people and sharing stories. My personality is likely what first drove me to a career in journalism and now a career in communication and public outreach.

I like to think that my identity is the same in person as it is online, but I know that is not entirely true. All of the main traits are there – I’m outgoing, positive and compassionate – but I’m very conscious that anything I put on social media is there for public consumption and there are certain things I reserve for just those that actually know me.

I think that I am different depending on the social media platform that I’m on, but that is in part because of the nature of the platforms themselves. LinkedIn is a professional networking site, so everything I share there is about my professional life. When I worked in the newspaper business I would share my articles there, now that I work for a public agency I share information about upcoming events, projects and other news related to my work.

Instagram offers people a picture book glimpse at my life. I have it set to public so you won’t see any bikini pics there (that’s a bit of a joke, I wouldn’t post them anywhere online, that’s just not me). I share pictures of my dogs, food and occasional accomplishments (like crushing a timed mile run). All of the images reflect who I am, but I don’t think they offer as much detail about my life as a Facebook post might. On Facebook, where I only allow friends to see my profile, my siblings often tag me in posts about my nieces and nephews, some of whom have had to overcome some medical issues. For them it’s an easy way to share information with our many relatives spread all over the country. I share news articles I may find interesting and I get into a lot of discussions with friends and family. While my profile is set to private, I do always operate under the assumption that anything I post online could be viewed by anyone. So you won’t see me getting into political debates, particularly because in my profession I work with members of both parties and I would never want one to feel like I was favoring the other. I’m not as active as I used to be on Twitter. When I was a journalist I would live tweet events. Now I mostly share posts from former colleagues about news stories that I find interesting. I always saw it as a professional tool than more of a place to share things, but that could also be because of who I follow and who follows me. Many of my friends do not use Twitter and none of my family is on the platform.

All of this was a long way of saying that in all of these mediums I am still myself and I think my main personality traits shine through. But I do censor myself a bit online. There are things I will say in discussions with friends and family that I wouldn’t post online, but that’s my choice.

I think that technology helps us amplify our personalities, rather than control them. We can choose to share things or not. I think people like myself who are more extraverted are more likely to post on social media as ourselves and share the same types of information we would share in person. For me, technology allows me to easily communicate with my family who lives 3,000 miles away and social media lets me keep up with what is going on in their lives. Yesterday I got to see my brother on his birthday even though I’m in New Jersey and he’s in Arizona, because we both have iPhones with FaceTime.

I don’t chose to be anonymous on social media because I’m not shy and I don’t have an issue sharing things publicly. I think someone who scores low in extraversion may find the option of being anonymous online comforting because they do not have to put themselves out there publicly, but they can still participate in social interactions.

This blog post is an assignment for an Identity, Technology & Communication course at NJIT.