"The transition from ‘me’ to ‘professional.me’ is not unproblematic," writes Helen Keegan, "and there are ethical issues at play when we encourage our learners to cast-off prior, potentially problematic online IDs in order to nurture a persona that appeals to potential employers." When our online persona becomes something that is assessed and evaluated by others, she argues, it becomes something that is shallow and artificial. And the person loses the capacity to experiment and try on new hats. "The ability to adopt pseudonyms and personas has been core to the experience of many of our students, who choose to present themselves using alternative IDs in the professional spaces while still retaining their (much ‘cooler’ in terms of their peers) identities within less formalised spaces." The idea, in my mind, that we have one and only one identity is alien to actual experience, and it is a mistake to force that onto people online.
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