Personal Learning Network
The network is considered as interaction within people, technologies and massive information in the world. Social media is a digital-based platform that provides us with a place allowing people from worldwide to share their ideas, experiences, and knowledge. Therefore, social networking is a useful tool that enables people to connect with not only people but also their thoughts and information.
Social Networking allows people to access information and researches from experts. According to Rajagopal (2012), professional networking benefits both individuals and organizations. Especially during this pandemic, many people rely heavily on the internet to connect with people for safety purposes, the social network becomes a place for people to study. Many people suggest that a personal learning network is a powerful tool that supports people’s “lifelong learning” (University of Southampton, n.d.). As people learn more, a better career is an incentive that motivates people to participate in the networked public. Besides, professional networking helps to seek and match more suitable partners within organizations. More importantly, convenience is a huge factor in why more and more people are using social networks.
Everything has two sides, public communication benefits people but it also brings some risks while using. Firstly, people have various ideas on things and events; therefore, conflicts in opinions is a common problem. As the conflict gets serious, massive negative comments could bring people pressure, depression and other issues. Besides, technology can easily violate privacy. There are so many cases that an individual’s personal information is leaked out by people or companies. Therefore, people should protect their privacy while using social media.
Digital Identity
Eric Stoller (2016), a social media expert, defines digital identity as an individual’s presence online. In other words, a digital identity involves all your behaviour online. It can be seen as a portfolio that includes everything you have done online. Your digital identity reveals not only what you share and comment on but also the way you use digital tools.
People may perform differently depending on what kind of digital identity they want to use. For a personal digital identity, people may stay connect with friends and family. Since the relationship is close enough, the way people post and the words they use are tend to be more casual, or sometimes even inappropriate. To be more specific, on platforms like Instagram and Twitter, most people reveal a personal digital identity. Compare with personal use of social media, on a professional platform, people are most likely to communicate with colleagues and experts. Sometimes, a good presence on business networking sites will develop one’s career. Thus, people will likely use more appropriate and positive language while posting things on professional platforms like LinkedIn. However, many people can follow your “footprint” on the internet. For example, others are able to find out your Instagram account by looking at the pictures and information on your LinkedIn page. Therefore, I personally think the boundaries of a person’s performance on personal and professional social media are hazier these days.Â
In my opinion, although one’s digital identity does not present a full view of a person, it still does reveal a huge portion of a person’s personality, thoughts, and value to the public. People sometimes rely on social media too heavily to realize they shared way too much stuff on the internet. Thus, excessive private information sharing can be risky and even dangerous. However, the benefits that a detailed digital identity brings you is also obvious. It allows you to connect with a group of people who have similar thoughts to you. It helps an organization to have a vivid image of you, which might impact your whole career.Â
Reference
Boyd, D. (2012). Networked privacy. Surveillance & Society, 10(3/4), 348-350. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v10i3/4.4529.
Gutierrez, K. (2016, June 21). What are personal learning networks? Shift eLearning. Retrieved September 17. from https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/personal-learning-networks
Rajagopal, K., Joosten-ten Brinke, D., Van Bruggen, J., & Sloep, P. B. (2012). Understanding personal learning networks: Their structure, content and the networking skills needed to optimally use them. First Monday, 17(1) https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v17i1.3559
University of Derby. (2016, November 25). Eric Stoller – What is Digital Identity?[Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0RryRbJza0
What is a personal learning Network (PLN)? FutureLearn. (n.d.). Retrieved September 17, 2021, from https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/learning-network-age/0/steps/24644
World Economic Forum. (2019, February 6). Davos 2019 – Press Conference The Value of Digital Identity for the Global Economy and Society[Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-V7lyxrOmw
5 Comments
Hi Kelsey
As you said, the emergence of personal learning networks during the pandemic has really had a huge impact on the world. It allows us to be educated and meet people in a safe environment while maintaining safe social distancing. To get people out of their isolation. Digital identity also allows others to know more about a person. The Internet is virtual, so people are more willing to show their more authentic characteristics online. It can help build your image, but it can also help destroy it. Also, when sharing too much, privacy is also doomed to leak, so it can be said that this thing has advantages and disadvantages.
Hi Kelsey. I really like this blog, and your blog setting as a whole looks very simple and doesn’t let readers get distracted by too many other factors.
You hit the point at the beginning of your article, and your awareness of social media is clear. Given our current pandemic, I quite agree that we are all lifelong learner, not only can we learn oat school, we can get more information from people all over the world on the Internet, and we can learn independently about what we are interested in, it also meet the requirements of social distancing.
What we say on social media can represent what we think, not only allowing us to find like-minded friends faster, but also enabling companies to discover more of our potential.
Your blog has surprised me a lot and I hope to see more of your blog.
Have a nice day 🙂
Joerica
Hello Kelsey, thanks for sharing! In terms of public communication, I quite agree with you that people have different views on things and it’s easy to argue; if the dispute is serious, it will lead to depression and other psychological diseases and even death, I think we should pay attention to it and be careful to post. Thank you!
Hi Kelsey!
I resonated with your blog post when you discussed conflict on social media and the detrimental effects that can ensue. The influx of negative comments on one’s social media page can cause people to suffer from mental health issues. This can be observed in many social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others, but I personally witness this the most on Instagram. In particular, many celebrities with massive followings will receive thousands of hate comments per day, which inevitably affects their mental state. This issue is ongoing and continues to worsen as more people join social media and are able to hide behind false identities. Great blog post Kelsey, thanks for sharing!
Caitlin