Kids and Digital Identities

Like many people, my email address is my lifeline. Also, like many people, I have constructed a digital identity using as few different aliases as possible. Just about everything I do online is centred around the tag "glassbeed" (my email address, my Skype ID, MSN, etc.). I also use "cfisher" when glassbeed (yes, I know it is spelled wrong, and if you are wondering where the whole glassbeed thing comes from, you really need to read this and buy this book) isn't available to me.

Knowing these several things about me, you can probably track me down on almost any service I belong to.

I had an interesting experience with the kids in my class the other day. At the beginning of the year, as the students were signing up for various accounts to use in class such as for their blogs, iGoogle, etc. I was collecting their user names and passwords. I believe this is a safety and accountability issue for both me and them so I expect them to hand these things over to me. I also asked the students for their email addresses in case I needed to get in contact with them via IM or email. They willingly gave them to me.

Last week I was setting up a wiki to use in our thinwalls collaboration and I wanted to add all of the students to it. I pulled up my spreadsheet with all of their contact information on it and began adding kids to the wiki. I then pulled up my MSN, found a few kids in the class who were online at home and told them to let everyone else know that they needed to check their email and get these accounts set up before school the next day. The next morning arrived and we headed into the computer lab to do some other work. Asking the students, approximately seven or eight of them told me that they never received their invitation. Strange I thought. Going through their email accounts, we found three of them had been caught by spam filters and were sitting in junk mail boxes, but about four of them seemed to have disappeared.

In the end, after doing all of the detective work, one of the students asked me where I had sent their invitation. Replying that I had sent it to the account they provided me with in September, they laughed and said they had already moved email addresses, twice, since then. This ended up to be the case with all of these students. None of them had received their invitation because their address had already changed. This was interesting and significant to me. The kids are trying things on. They are changing their identities as time passes. They need a new password, or a new user name, or a cooler address so they simply move. For us it would be a huge burden of missed mail if we moved often, but for them, it was not an issue. It was expected.

What does this say about them as users compared to us? What does this say about fluid identities and expectations for online behaviour? It also seems to be a continuing trend. In discussions with them about this, the kids in my class have stated that almost all of them have changed email addresses several times in the years they have had one (remember, these kids are approximately 12 - 14 years old) with some kids changing very often while others have changed fewer times. As well, the kids who spend a larger amount of time online are more apt to change their identities more often, making it more personal and fitting to them as time passes. It was an interesting thing to catch and something I will definitely be keeping track of over this year.

Tags: digitalidentity, change, email, classroom, technology

Comments

[Pam Shoemaker]

Sounds like a great idea for an action research project!

[Matthew]

Having grown up in a digital world, our students have different expectations from those of us who are still transferring our concepts from the analog world. I can certainly understand the significance placed on keeping an established identity when looking at the problem of transferring a physical mailing address. This is not something most school-aged children have had to do.

[Graham Wegner]

We used wikispaces last year with kids in Year Six who moved onto Year Seven in 2007. So when they went to call up last year's online alias, quite a few wanted to change. Why? What was cool and humorous when they were 11 going on 12 was now dorky and pathetic. You're right, as adults, we have a fairly good handle on who we are offline and we then try to recreate that singular identity online. But now we have kids still working out who they are and they willingly reptile-like shed their online skins and try on another identity for size. Free ranging [teachandlearnonline.blogspot.com/2006/06/free-ranging-and-bill-postering.html] is their default behaviour.

[Jabiz Raisdana]

Great post. It really got me thinking...Great discussion to have with kids.

[Cami]

Guilty as charged. I'm a 3rd year Education Student and after reading this post, I found myself thinking back to the good old days (haha...five or so years ago) when my e-mail addresses changed every few months. I'm sure over time I've accumulated 20 or so different e-mail addresses on different services. Since I started my post secondary education however, I've settled into a groove, and usernames remain pretty standard. Not only does it facilitate having to remember everything, but as you mentioned, what would happen if we were to change e-mail addresses as often as we change our shoes? Chaos would probably ensue.
Great post. :)

[gabriela sellart]

My students here in Argentina are also constantly changing their email addresses. I had never thought this was an "international trend". What they usually do is "personalize" their identities adding the film they like at the moment or the actor they are in love with (I think girls change more often than boys) or whatever identifies them at that specific moment. Of course at that age their interests are constantly changing, and so are their identities. They don't even notify their contacts about the change. When they are around 16 they start using their real names and surnames, so I think this trend is just related to that period of life when you are trying to build your identity.