Should multiple identities be allowed for a single individual on the internet?
The debate rages. Facebook and Google+ try to force everyone to show a single identity. Still, since the beginning of internet, geeks often like to have different identities for different purposes. A good reference is this blog post about the views of a typical geek, Chris Poole.
Showing different identities in parallel is extremely difficult in the real physical world. The few exceptions like a husband having several wives in different places, unbeknownst to the others, are strange enough to be good topics for Hollywood.
On the internet, however, it is quite easy to have several identities in parallel. And even if Facebook and Google+ try to force us into a single, lifetime identity, it is relatively easy to circumvent those controls – sharing networks is only more difficult, and having multiple identities is not practical for everybody.
Still, we all have multiple identities already. We don’t send on our corporate emails the same messages to the same people than from our personal email. We don’t network with the same people and discuss the same topics on Facebook and on LinkedIn.
This debate is thus futile. Yes, we have, and we all manage different identities. They are more or less consistent. But they are different. And the number of identities we will have will grow, and become more deeply different.
As the Fourth Revolution book argues, while the population on Earth might reach a plateau, the number of identities on internet will continue to grow tremendously. And this will create more value for everybody.
Don’t freak out. Maintain and develop your different identities on the internet!
