Who are You - Really?

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"If you don't want to see it on the front page of the newspaper..."

Social Media is now the dominant communication venue for person to person interaction. Facebook logs more unique daily visitors than any other website on all the search engines (by a considerable margin). The median age of users is now firmly in the camp of consumers 30 - 50 years of age and business is scrambling to figure out who they are so they can interact. People everywhere are now starting to make decisions based on what they learn about you and see on social media sites. So why does the average user try so hard to keep up so many versions of themselves? They have the professional, business focused, version on Linked In, the party animal on one facebook page and the company/politically correct version on another. A twitter account that spouts short missives, perhaps a myspace page and sometimes a blog. Each with differing views of their cyber persona. We each have various sides to our personality and there should certainly be room to view the fun side of each of us. But when we show one side to one group and quite another to a different viewer the question becomes "Who is this person really?" Perhaps the person posting isn't quite sure themselves and is still in the process of forming their true character. Perhaps they are merely having fun, letting of steam, being satirical or just having a laugh. Regardless, todays TMZ styled media has trained us all to view and pay attention to the shocking over the sincere. So perhaps the caution should be "What you post in cyberspace is permanently in cyberspace" the version of you posted that shocks will garner the most attention. The picture of you with the lampshade on your head will invariably become your avatar to the world. Perhaps that is one of the reasons behind the privacy hoop la that concerns so many. So post who you really are, what you really think, and what you really believe. Have one true version for everyone to see - Let us understand who you really are.
If it includes a lampshade - So be it.

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