Sean Polley Digital Media Log

 What does your online behavior say about you?

My online behavior essentially states that I am (along with most people) almost entirely dependent on an internet connection or some kind of online access to do my work and most everything else that I do through out the day.

Do you let your real personality show, or are you pretending to be someone else online.

I actually let my real personality show online because I don't really see the point of being someone you aren't (even though I'll acknowledge that online is one of the best if not best places to be someone different). In real life I'm really laid back and trolly (in the sense that I joke around a lot, not trolling as in messing with people and pissing them off), and online lets me be even more like that. I do sometimes get the case of becoming a keyboard warrior (someone who says whatever the want online because they are behind the comfort of their own room, and are anonymous) and say stuff that I normally would never in real life; but that is usually when I am in a bad mood for whatever reason.

Are you honest and affirming to your online friends, or are you a deceitful troll?

I know for a fact that I am both honest and trolly at the same time. Im a troll in the sense that I say a lot of things in a joking matter but only really in a playful way, I'm never really deceitful. But even then, most of what I say and who I am with my online friends is true to who I am in real life, I just like to joke around a lot because that is just who I am, and most of what is online is supposed to be for fun any ways.

Would you hire someone like you, why or why not?

I would hire someone like me, but not based on my Digital Media Log. My log shows without a doubt that I spend A LOT of time online for sure, but some things are hidden behind that. For example, you wouldn’t know just by glancing over that I love to mess around with coding and computers, or that although I spend a lot of leisure time online, I make sure that I get my work done first before I do that. Someone who was hiring might not be so confident if they saw how much online time I spend, but I think that in today’s society it's increasing difficult to not spend hours of your day online.

Do you see an areas that you might like to work on changing?

The area I know I need to change is the fact that I spend a lot of leisure time online and I know that I can get carried away if I have a lot of free time, and or have finished all my work that I need to do.

Is your online life getting in the way of enhancing your offline life?

I actually think that my online life is helping to enhance my offline life through the various social media applications such as Skype, Online Gaming, E-Mails, LinkedIn, etc. Obviously there is a point in where too much online time will present negative externalities, in your offline life but that is only when you take priority to online life over things that you have to do (school, work, family, friends, etc.)

Do you now see some ethical issues in your online life that you were unaware of before taking this course?

Before I took this course I had an idea that I spent a lot of my time online, but I didn't have a clear idea. Now that I've taken this course I can visually see how many hours I actually spend online, and even more shocking was the percent of waking day for each day. Ethically I don't really see too many issues primarily because of the digital age that we live in, and the fact that I'm a computer science major so being online is just part of my lifestyle now. But I will say that it wouldn't hurt to step down a notch in my overall online time.