We all have different personas for the people we talk to. We don’t say the same things to our spouse that we would to our boss. We don’t say the same things to our kids that we would say to the cop that just pulled us over. We know our audience. It doesn’t necessarily make us insincere. I just makes us better communicators.
The advent of more and emerging Social Media networks have allowed us to take part in more specialized social groups. Some have different values and goals and each around their own subject matter. I’ve started to recognize that the person I am on one network is not who I am in another. It’s not a deliberate or sinister effort by any means. I simply have different audiences, different conversations on different topics. But is this conversational plate spinning segmenting my personality?
Facebook is where I (used to) post all the best things that happen in my life. If it didn’t happen here it didn’t happen. This was a way to broadcast how much fun I was having, places I visited, people I was with and were all delivered with a positive slant. Before I got wise and removed the images that I may not want getting out that is.
Twitter is where I am a founder, product designer and in a different conversation. I post articles I write, random thoughts as they pertain to entrepreneurship and design, and of course the expected standard number of re-tweets of mildly interesting things I’ve come across. It’s pretty much my media aggregator.
I’m an artist on Instagram. I only post art. I only follow artists much to the chagrin of some friends. The Facebook socialite and Twitter entrepreneur cannot be found here. Nor can the artist be found on the other networks.
And let’s not forget LinkedIn where we get shunned for posting anything personal so it requires us to stick to business-related posts. I post on LinkedIn when I’m searching for great people to hire so my posts are mindful this way. I don’t post anything untrue, but I do focus on our great company culture and reasons why someone would want to work for us.
Digging a bit deeper into my multiple personalities, I use Slack at work where I’m a different person in each channel. In the #general channel posting my “Go Sportsball!” quotes right after the Superbowl. I can be found geeking out in the #starwars channel (because where is my trailer for episode 8?) and the #productteam channel it’s all about the work.
One place I am always the same no matter which app is in my quantified self apps. It’s all about the data. I give them my weight, heart rate, mood, sleep, meditation, nutrition, activity and all are all true and without slant. It has to be or the results would be useless. I wonder what would happen if we took all of the data from our quantified self and compare that with the things we post on social media to see if they match? What would the share line be? “Hey friends! Turns out I’m only 35% full of shit on social media! Woo hoo!”
Given the oncoming wave of new networks we may have to manage an increasing number of these conversations. We’ll have to do this with each corresponding dedicated persona that we have defined. Is social media slowly making us insane?
It has to be said that it isn’t social media that is splintering our personalities. Rather it’s ourselves since it is all completely voluntary. We are choosing to do this and I’m ok with it as I’m betting most are. As long as I’m an authentic me I can share it a slice at a time, but where is the tipping point? Will there eventually be a point where we will lose sight of our true selves in exchange for a hundred personas?
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This post was originally published on Medium.
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