Identity Management in Cyberspace

 Suler identifies five interlocking factors that allow us to navigate how we manage our online identity. 

Level of Dissociation and Integration
Our personalities are created of many different facets - roles we play in different situations.  Online we are able to parse these aspects according to the specific environment.  In each situation we make a decision as to how much we share about ourselves.  While this occurs in the offline world as well, it is more concentrated online as many of the groups we join reflect only one small aspect of our personality.  Suler states, "The desire to remain anonymous reflects the need to eliminate those critical features of your identity that you do not want to display in that particular environment or group." 


Positive and Negative Valence
Our different components can each be assigned a value of positive or negative.  Showing empathy would be a positive trait, while criticizing the flaws of others unduly would reflect negatively upon our character.  Beyond the basic altruistic values of good and bad, we can feel negative emotions towards aspects of our personalities that are seen as positive by others.  All of this charges our online interactions.  Suler suggests that those who behave in a negative fashion online are discharging a negatively charged aspect of their personality - venting their emotions, or trying to work through that aspect of their personality in a 'safe' way. 

Level of Fantasy or Reality
The situation itself dictates rules for how one presents him- or herself.  In these situations one does not pretend to be something other than what they are - well, not often anyway.  In other situations, like a MMORPG, it is expected that a person will give themselves over to character.  Some aspects may change, physical appearance, occupation, name, while others may stay the same.  Suler states, "The tricky phenomonological issue with the real versus the fantasy self is this: what is one's TRUE identity?" 

Level of Conscious Awareness and Control
We are not always aware of how we present ourselves.  When we engage in online interactions it is possible that aspects of our personality we try to keep hidden will leak out.  The name we select on a whim may reflect a deeper symbolic meaning to which we have not paid attention.  It is possible in this way for online characters to 'take on a life of their own'.  Sometimes this allows us to gain insights into personalities.  Yet others may resist looking more closely at themselves in this way and continue to, "Live under the illusion that they are in control of themselves."

The Media Chosen
We express who we are in a myriad of different ways - from the clothes we wear, music we listen to, movies and television we watch, and the other media we consume.  " Extending the logic of the statement, 'The medium is the message,' we might even be so bold as to say, 'The medium is the self.'"  The very form we chose to express our identity online says much about who we are.  From linguistic- and semantically focused text messagers to visualizers who prefer detailed avatars, what we say is not always as important as how we say it. 

Suler has identified these five traits, but fails to explain the implications of these aspects.  Are these sliding scales that could be used to create a typography of online personalities?  It is unfortunate that Suler ends the article at this point, without further exploring the issues raised.

Suler, John R. (2002). Identity management in cyberspace. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 4 (4), 455-459.