Identity: Anonymous - Public. And its' potential impact on mental health.

#1 Exploration begins

696.eth

696.eth

The beginning of exploration: identity in a world of social media and its' impact on mental health.

Starting the exploration of Anonymous - - - Public.

Anonymous:

  • No personal information shared

  • No identifiable characteristics

  • Possibly using pseudonyms

No public information, real life identity completely hidden.

And then we have the complete opposite - Public:

  • Full name and identity openly shared

  • All content visible to anyone

  • Associated openly with real-world identity

No extra hidden identity on top of Public. It's just an extra tool.

But is it all?

I don't think so. I view it more as a spectrum and I'm attempting to showcase it here.

We have at least:

Pseudo-Anonymous:

  • Some identifiable traits (such as location or interests) but not full name

  • Pseudonyms that may be tied to some public information

  • Could be traced back to an individual with enough effort

I would consider my own identity to be pseudo-anonymous. And I consider someone like punk 6529, to be a pseudo-anonymous as well. While he's really unknown, including his voice, it's now a solid standalone identity.

Partially Identifiable:

  • Profile picture or name that doesn't give full identity

  • Limited personal information shared (like first name only)

  • Connections with real-life friends or acquaintances

This would also be someone who uses nicknames yet is pretty open with their pictures and other identifiers.

Public but Restricted:

  • Full name and possibly other identifying details

  • Restricted audience (e.g., friends only on social media)

  • Control over who sees content

Right now, we have ended up with this spectrum:

Anonymous -- Pseudo-Anonymous -- Partially Identifiable -- Public but Restricted -- Public

What can we derive from that?

The more you are on the right side, the higher the chance your Real Life and Online social identities are overlapping. They are probably more integrated too as it's more of an addition to your identity. However, I do see scenarios, in examples of famous people, where even with fully public profiles there's more of a divide, boundaries and maybe even compartmentalization between one's identities. There's certain information that stays private as not everything needs to nor fits into the place to be shared publicly.

Now, swinging to the opposite of the anonymous. There's a higher chance of cultivating a somewhat stronger identity. On one hand, it might feel like it's the most authentic version of one yet certain actions and things would not necessarily be done by those individuals if they were more or fully public. Being anonymous might create a higher degree of inner compartmentalization and lead to more of one's fragmentation.

Future exploration.

To explore the depth of the potential impact on mental health, I'd have to introduce other concepts and my experience as I continue practicing being more aware, observing and noting the differences. As I view people as complex and multiple human beings, there is enough room for gaps to exist and more extreme types of environments and additional identities, such as a completely anonymous online one, can create significant rifts in one's internal system.

That's something for the future as we might need to bring up some Systems view or thinking.

As it was said, this is just the beginning of the exploration. And what I'm noticing is that it is going to require me to be more subjective and authentic in terms of bringing my own experiences or the learnings of others that I have experienced or received.

In no shape or form am I going to be turning it into more of a scientific endeavor, at least for now, so even if I end up bringing up more nuanced approaches and understanding of one's own psyche, I'm not going to be referencing any articles and probably no outside resources. It would be more of a 'trust me bro' moment but this is where my personal subjective perspective would come in more handy.

p.s. it is one of the first times I've used chatGPT to help me with writing, more in terms of charting the initial spectrum, that is where it's been more involved. Usually I ask it to help me to proofread, help find the right words and format the structure but this time it also generated the vision spectrum that I envisioned in my head pretty well, I still had to make sure it worked out though.

696.eth
696.eth
Commented 2 years ago

Let me know what you think, feel or what you find relatable. Also, feel free to give me any feedback on how I can improve.

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

Inverse AMA! Comment below and I’ll ask you a question 😊 promise it will be thoughtful https://warpcast.com/six/0x95b3c794

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

@july idc that you haven’t commented I’m gonna ask anyways If you could narrow it down to one philosophical quote, question, or comment that resonated the most with you, what would it be?

JulyFarcaster
July
Commented 1 year ago

Going to think about this and get back to you

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

Goodnight!!!

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

Okay everyone. I’m out of gas for now, but I would suggest everyone to do their own inverse AMA! It’s a lot of fun. Special thanks to @six for the cool idea and everyone else for participating.

Samuel ツFarcaster
Samuel ツ
Commented 1 year ago

👀 anything goes. Go

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

What do you hope to achieve in your life?

Samuel ツFarcaster
Samuel ツ
Commented 1 year ago

Love the question😍

CadenFarcaster
Caden
Commented 1 year ago

ama.

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

How has quitting nicotine been so far?

artlu 🎩Farcaster
artlu 🎩
Commented 1 year ago

candles queen! AMA if you have the energy for it

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

Thank you 🕯️ Why do you believe you’re uncensorable?

artlu 🎩Farcaster
artlu 🎩
Commented 1 year ago

holy f I have been waiting for someone to ask this question what do I do now

Colin Johnson 💭Farcaster
Colin Johnson 💭
Commented 1 year ago

👋 I love Sam questions!

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

First, I hope your Achilles(?) is feeling a lot better! Why do you think you and @ba make a good match for cofounders?

Carter | 🏳️‍🌈Farcaster
Carter | 🏳️‍🌈
Commented 1 year ago

hello :)

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

What ring/jewelry did you end up getting your partner? I would love to see any pics.

Nounish Prof ⌐◧-◧🎩Farcaster
Nounish Prof ⌐◧-◧🎩
Commented 1 year ago

I really enjoyed the one I did! Learned so much. So —hit me! Whatcha wanna know?

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

You’ve done 45 episodes of gmfarcaster. You probably have a strong understanding of what works and what doesn’t for you. Why are you going to continue to do more episodes?

rishFarcaster
rish
Commented 1 year ago

maybe you have casted this already before -- how did you decide to start selling candles? :)

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

Short answer is I like it and the math mathed! Long answer is: TAM and CAGR good, profit margins great, hit the salary ceiling in tech already, and I find logistics and operations intellectually stimulating. If you wanna read more: https://humankind.place/blogs/news/how-i-built-a-candle-company-from-0-1

GregFarcaster
Greg
Commented 1 year ago

“the math mathed” im stealing this ty

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

Now - time for your question. What did you see in the future?

rishFarcaster
rish
Commented 1 year ago

cool software

kevinFarcaster
kevin
Commented 1 year ago

👋

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ Farcaster
Sam (crazy candle person) ✦
Commented 1 year ago

If you had to leave SF forever or stay in SF forever, what would you pick?

kevinFarcaster
kevin
Commented 1 year ago

damn this is difficult - if sf includes the surroundings areas then i'd consider it, if not then hard pass

696Farcaster
696
Commented 2 years ago

I said I was gonna write about exploring identities, social media & mental health and I did it!! Prioritizing experimentation, exploration and failure as ways to grow freely in a curious non-judgmental way. https://paragraph.xyz/@696eth/identity-anonymous-public-and-its-potential-impact-on-mental-health

kkonrad from peanutFarcaster
kkonrad from peanut
Commented 2 years ago

Wow thanks for sharing!

Identity: Anonymous - Public. And its' potential impact on mental health.