Week One: Personal Learning Networks & Digital Identity

Going into this week’s readings, I would have described my social media use as a place to keep up with friends and occasionally get lost down a rabbit hole. What I hadn’t really considered is how much of what I do online is quietly building something more structured called a Personal Learning Network.

What does it mean to network using social media?

Rajagopal, Joosten-ten Brinke, Van Bruggen, and Sloep (2011) break a Personal Learning Network down into three ongoing activities: building it (adding people or resources who can offer something useful), maintaining it (keeping those connections warm), and activating it (actually calling on someone at the right moment to deepen your learning). That framing was useful for me, because it turns “networking” from a vague, slightly uncomfortable idea into something concrete. For me, that looks less like formal networking events and more like following biology-related accounts and researchers online, saving the occasional article, and eventually reaching out or engaging when it’s actually relevant. For example, when I’m trying to figure out which career paths to look into more closely.

How are we motivated to participate in networked publics?

The motivation seems to split into two overlapping categories which are wanting to build an identity, and wanting to belong to something. Spracklen (2015) frames online communities as a kind of “leisure space” where people gather around shared interests, and I can see that clearly in my own case through cooking and baking accounts. I follow recipe developers and home cooks not because I have to, but because I genuinely enjoy the content. Over time that’s turned into its own little network of people whose techniques I trust, accounts I go back to before trying something new, the odd recipe I save and never actually make. Layered on top of that is a more academic angle which is that participation is also driven by wanting to understand a field. In my case, that field is biology. I’m still figuring out which direction within it actually fits me, and the course material frames that kind of exploration as a mix of learning motivation and identity-building.

What are the risks & rewards of public communications?

The rewards are easy to point to. There’s access to knowledge and people you wouldn’t otherwise reach, a faster way to find out what’s actually happening in a field or hobby, and the ability to shape how you’re perceived before anyone’s met you in person. The risks are less obvious day-to-day but more serious in hindsight. Content persists, contexts collapse, and audiences you didn’t anticipate, like a professor, a future employer, or an old classmate, can end up seeing something meant for a much smaller circle. Eric Stoller’s description of digital identity as a “publicly searchable portfolio” stuck with me here. Even something as low-stakes as a baking post exists in that same searchable, permanent space, which makes the portfolio framing feel less abstract and more like something worth actively managing.

What is a digital identity?

Digital identity is essentially the accumulated, searchable version of you that exists across platforms, built not just from what you post, but from what’s shared about you, what you engage with, and how all of that gets interpreted by whoever’s looking. It’s also not static. The Davos 2019 panel on digital identity made this point on a national scale, using Estonia’s digital ID system as an example of how identity infrastructure depends on trust, security, and clear rules being enforced consistently. The same principles that apply to a country’s digital ID system apply to an individual’s online presence, just at a much smaller scale.

How do personal versus professional approaches to digital identity affect social media use?

This is where I noticed the clearest split in my own habits. My personal accounts are casual and mostly closed off, think friends, family, day-to-day life, my cooking and sewing projects, while anything connected to my academic interests, like the biology-related content I follow or anything I might post about coursework, is more deliberately curated, because I know it’s more likely to be seen by people evaluating me professionally down the line. Spracklen’s point that identity is “always changing and can be negotiated” resonates here. I’m not presenting a fixed version of myself online; I’m adjusting the presentation depending on who might be looking.

How do digital identities converge in networked publics – what are the impacts and/or benefits?

The convergence piece is the part I hadn’t thought carefully about before. Because platforms collapse the usual social boundaries, one post can reach a friend, a classmate, and a potential employer at the same time, which is generally fine, until it isn’t. The benefit is that it allows for a more complete, multi-dimensional version of yourself to exist online, someone who’s a biology student and someone who bakes bread and sews on the weekend. The challenge is that it requires constant awareness that there’s no fully “private” audience anymore, which is part of why the reflective side of this week’s exercise, going back through my own controlled and uncontrolled content, felt more useful than I expected going in.

Takeaway

Coming out of this week, the biggest shift for me is realizing that my Personal Learning Network and my digital identity aren’t really separate things. The people and content I engage with, whether that’s a nature account or a sourdough tutorial, are the identity, whether I’m being deliberate about it or not. That’s a good nudge to start being more intentional about both.

References

Rajagopal, K., Joosten-ten Brinke, D., Van Bruggen, J., & Sloep, P. B. (2011). Understanding personal learning networks: Their structure, content and the networking skills needed to optimally use them. First Monday, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v17i1.3559

Spracklen, K. (2015). Digital leisure, the internet and popular culture: Communities and identity in a digital age. Palgrave Macmillan.

Stoller, E. (n.d.). What is digital identity? [Video].

World Economic Forum. (2019). The value of digital identity for the global economy and society [Panel discussion, Davos 2019].