Limitations of online identity

1. LIMITATIONS OF
ONLINE IDENTITY

2. DESIGN ‘AFFORDANCES’
 They “direct us to act in certain ways and even be a
certain type of person” (Poletti and Rak 2013)
 We are limited by the standardised forms and templates
that are present on websites and social media platforms
(Smith and Watson 2013)
 The way we act and present ourselves is dictated heavily
by these designs and their limitations (Smith and Watson
2013).

3. THE ‘QUANTIFIED SELF’
 “The capacity of people to become contributors to Big Data;
they can increasingly contribute their personal data to large
databases” (Smith and Watson 2013).
 Digital systems reduce everything to simple bits of
information to be processed. When we reduce our
humanity to fit in with the requirements of a machine (or a
database, or a piece of software), we lose something of
ourselves (Gauntlett 2011).

4. OPEN TO MANIPULATION
 Users situate themselves discursively in relation to
context-specific social norms which determine and
constitute identities as subject position.
 They are implicated in sharing their content online,
opening themselves up to identity theft and having their
personal data easily searchable and manipulated.
(Smith and Watson 2013)