The other day while I was in the self-checkout line of my local grocery store, a curious thing happened: a man asked if he could borrow my shopper card.  Now, this seems normal enough.  He forgot his card and was hoping to receive some discounts on his items.  But, arguably because I am a bit crazy, I went into panic mode.  I immediately looked into his cart and saw some calorie-ridden, weird flavor of ice cream and a huge bag of dog food.  (I of course was most likely buying organic fruits and vegetables . . . ok probably not but I like to pretend I’m healthy.) The first thought that came to my mind was: now my account will think of me as a buyer of ice cream and dog food.  (Yes I just said that my account can “think.”)  What if on my subsequent visits the coupon machine shoots out annoying coupons for frozen dairy products and pet items?!

But it didn’t stop there.  I realized there was much more to be worried about than how the system at the grocery store identified me.  What if this identity was linked to my digital identity in general?  The store has my name, phone number and home address.  What if my savings card is linked to my Facebook and LinkedIn page?!  What if online I forever become known as the girl who sits at home with her many dogs and eats ice cream all day?!

After the many minutes of me looking terrified and staring at the poor guy and his cart contents, I let him borrow the damn card.  I went home, still feeling a little paranoid about the scar I may have just left on my digital self and thinking about how much we are changing as a society when we not only to have to worry about offline identity management, but online too.

Yes, my story about the ice cream and dog food is crazy.   But, you have to admit it does open up an interesting area of discourse regarding online identity.  To be honest, I was a little disappointed in myself for getting so worked up about something so ridiculous.  I thought that I was more media literate than that!  But it goes to show that we are living in a new frontier that can affect anyone.  And, don’t forget, if the media can make us believe that digital and online worlds are scary places, they will have a much easier time selling us books, TV shows, movies and news stories.

Being smart online is always valid.  Making sure that you aren’t giving your credit card number to a shady site or replying to a random email with your social security number are important things to remember.  But these rules make sense in the offline world too.  Would you try to use your credit card at a shady store?  Would you ever give your social security number to a guy walking down the street who randomly asks for it?  These are the offline equivalents to the online examples I have provided, yet for some reason people act as though online it’s different.

In my mind, the real concept to discuss regarding the digital world, that is a new concept, is that you are visible to more people than ever before.  Therefore, it is important to create an online identity that authentically embodies the best you that you can be.  The Internet allows for so many possibilities that it really doesn’t make sense that more people are not online acting as critical producers of media content.  No matter what you enjoy doing or what message you want to broadcast, the Internet provides you with opportunities like no other medium.  Maybe you enjoy writing poetry.  Maybe you want to create videos to speak out about poverty in your community.  Maybe you want to blog about someone who is doing great things at your school.  Maybe you want to critique an episode of a TV show that you found to be particularly racist.

Media constantly talk about the p-word – PRIVACY.  We become so consumed with making aspects of our digital selves hidden, that we forget about the many possibilities awaiting us.  We forget about the things that we should want to publicly and proudly display.  Instead of teaching our kids how to hide, we should be teaching them how to create a safe, online space that leads them to become engaged and informed citizens.

I don’t want to give off the misconception that I don’t think of online safety as an important issue.  I certainly do.  But I hate how the discussion is always so one-sided.  Teaching people the right things to do online makes more sense than scaring them into not using the Internet at all.

By the way,  I haven’t received any weird coupons yet.  I will keep you updated.