From gaming networks to online forums, everywhere you go on the internet defines your online identity. But does everything you put online somehow reflect who you are? Some people criticize the ease in which someone can create a fake online persona, but I still feel that no matter what online site being used, there is always some reflection of who you are showing through. It is very hard to create something that has absolutely no relation to your actual self.

I think that this aspect of online identity is very helpful in trying to figure out who you truly are. Although I have always felt that the internet and technology in general has hindered our relationships with other people and the value of face to face communication, in this case it may be helpful to our development of personality. Figuring out what works and doesn’t work with other people may not always be possible in person, but online almost anything is possible.

 And with that, we have to be careful how much we read into things on the internet. I am strongly against online dating sites and other things like that because if you really think about it? Come on, that’s sketchy. Using the internet to find people to create relationships sets you up for trouble. Because people only show parts of their personality, or even a part that is not fully developed, you can never be positive who that person really is.

 Your online identity really is a collaboration of all the different parts of who you are, so if someone could see all the different parts at once, then I believe that your online identity would match up pretty well to your real identity, whether or not you chose to admit it. However, only a small part of you shows on certain websites at a time, so someone could never truly find out your identity through just one part.

Source: (It’s that one we read in class!)http://users.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/identitymanage.html

I actually think I understand our topic and how it applies to Google! Which is awesome because before I had no idea. 

Google give its authority of information based on an algorithm that was developed by its programmers.  The page is given authority based on page rank, which we should all know what that means.  Because a page is more popular and has many outside pages that are linked to that page, they are ranked higher, and therefore come up higher on the search results.

But I still then do not understand how I can look something up on Google and the first couple results have nothing at all to do with what I was trying to look for.  I feel like if you have to learn the special techniques of the most beneficial way to google something, then the average user would not be as happy with the service that google provides.  And before I took this class, I don’t see how I would’ve learned all the different ways to better my searching techniques.  However, the ways that google indexes all the web pages are still beyond me, and it is definitley harder than I say it is to find a page that is exactly related to the searched topic. 

I still believe that with Google the quality of information is left to the descretion of the consumer.  It seems like we all have our own standards for the information we choose to use, and there are also many guidelines we can use to justify using the information we do.  Because Google uses page rank to display the most popular results first, I believe that the highest quality and most authoritative pages will come up, regardless of what you search.  Some aspects of authority and quality are based on popularity, and that is what Google bases their results on.     

In seeing that I still have only a small idea about what our topic is about, my first inclination was to turn to Google in search of information. Our instincts that have developed with our tech-savvy generation drive us to use Google as a launch pad for researching almost any topic.

But to begin our research on “the authority of information and the quality bar”, I thought it may be helpful to look at the history of something small, like research authority, which is only a small part of the authority of all information. Skimming the results pages on Google, I came across this site, http://unllib.unl.edu/LPP/regalado.htm, which proved to be a good starting point.

The author of the post is a librarian who is discussing the effects of the world wide web on research and the authority of information. Although the section is largely based on the relationship between students and professors and librarians, because that was the original intent of the article, I think she does bring up some relevant ideas about the transition from the secure authority of printed resources to the questionable authority of online information.

For example, she brings up the point that online information does not have to go through the editing process like that of anything that is published in print. Also, she mentions that students would much rather have convenience over quality, which I would say is true. With such a fast-pace society that we live in today, I believe that sometimes students sacrifice authority of information, for the quickness and ease of just choosing the first thing that pops up.

I think that classes and teachers have taught us enough about what is relevant and reliable online, that students today can use their own judgment to decide what authority things online have. Clearly, some sources are not to be relied on, but in fact Google can be a good starting point to get the pot stirring. Sites that end in .edu or .org have more standards than just a .com site. It is always a good idea to cross check your sources though, because of the fact that almost anyone can post something on the internet, with good intentions or not.

I think I am starting to understand more about what our topic includes, but I am still curious about what it may have to do with Facebook. Maybe my next post should be about the authority of information on Facebook.

Thanks for listening, and that’s all folks!

-Stacey K