Online identity: How do people portray themselves online and why?

In Week 2 Nigel asked us to look at how people present themselves online. Why do they use certain pictures for their profiles and what might that mean about the online identity they intend to portray? Nigel gave us two pictures of himself. One which he uses whenever he needs to display a photo of himself (first below)and another one which he uses for his Facebook profile (second below).







Whilst Nigel's first photo is has a very "official" and "academic" feel to it, the Facebook photo seems to portray him in a more personal and casual environment that seems more accessible and intimate.
This is quite surprising given the fact that Facebook is not a particularly personal platform. However, it is easy for people to connect to Nigel on Facebook since the picture is not intimidating like the official photograph is.

When thinking about Nigel's use of photographs I began to wonder which photos I am using for my different social networks. Whilst you see my official "for-all-purposes" picture on my blogger profile, I realised that for some reason I decided to use another photo for my Facebook profile. (see below)



It was actually my friend Mohieb who is hugging me on the picture who emailed me this photo and asked me to use it as my Facebook profile. Since I am not using Facebook too often, I did not spent too much time thinking about how I would like to portray myself and just used this photo.

When looking at my friend Veronica's profile on Facebook (see below), she portrays herself as an easy going, beautiful beach girl enjoying life. The picture is very inviting for many to connect her on Facebook. Knowing her in person, this is quite funny, since Veronica has a longterm boyfriend and is not really looking for any men right now.



I think that many people use the online space in order to live sides of themselves which they might not succeed to live in their real life. If people are very conservative in their real life, they might present themselves as easy going and free spirited in their online identity.
However, there is a lot of people who merely utilise online tools in order to improve their communication with friends, etc, who might not give too much importance to how they present themselves online.