The King & I

No no... we're not discussing the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical (sorry). Rather, it's the concept of who you are and who you appear to be online. Is there a difference? Is it, as the royalty of many countries do, a combination of the public personae and your private personae? What do you share and what do you not share on social networks (do you show your public or private personae there)? How do you decide?

Is it determined by who has access to your social network? I saw a distinct change in how I personally used social networks when my network expanded from simply close friends to acquaintances to students that I worked with. It shifted again when the ages of those students went from college age to high school age.

For students (in high school and college) how do you determine what you will post, both pictures and updates/comments? Who are your "status updates" geared at? Are you surprised sometimes at who responds? How does your social network use change when your parents (*gasp!*) join it? Do you choose different or fewer pictures to post? Are your status updates toned down? Do you (like I do now) never really post personal information as a status update?

One of the most amusing interactions I saw play out on my own Facebook page was a set of comments with one of my closest friends, my mother and a high school student I coach interacting with each other. None really know each other, but the three of them all joined together in the comments they left to laugh about a status update I posted. I never really expected that I would get a response from all three groups to a fairly generic post.

Another element of this comes into play when you add in admissions counselors or potential (and current) employers. Do you try to "Friend" an admissions counselor you've met at a college you really want to go to? And then if the request is accepted do you aim status updates at that person? How does the rest of your network ("friends") respond?

This is a lot to think about and every set of questions or group of people you are able to "friend" brings up another set of questions, but not alot of answers because of the personal nature of social networking. I do have one final question for you... do you ever think about any of this? Why or why not?