The digital era has managed to envelop humanity with its multiple updates and innovations. Technology advances with greater force as time pass by and Internet users are pleased with this. It has not only managed to reduce distances in communication, but it has also developed amazing abilities in humans, encouraging them to transform the way they relate to their environment and to appropriate the vast ocean of information.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are immersed in our daily activities and have generated a great impact, both individually and in the social collective, causing effects that for some are positive and for others can become negative.

The problematic or beneficial influence of ICT on our daily lives and society depends on the eyes that observe them. Do you attract those who are far from you and take away those who are closer to you?

This rhetorical question contrasts the power or impediments we have in these times as increasingly digital individuals. Thus, the use of ICT communication tools can be neutral, positive, or negative; it all depends on how they are used.

Being immersed in the daily use of ICT, we have developed multiple skills that are exploited with the frequent use of these. Empirically we have acquired skills that have not required any teacher in formal education.

Some of these empirical skills are:

  • Creativity: Internet user is pressured by everyone to create and edit digital content that the more innovative and creative it is, the more it will capture an audience.

  • Knowledge of the environment: identifying what type of audience the content is aimed at.

  • Intelligence: Think of new ways or strategies to reach your digital audience.

  • Knowing the latest trends: it is important to be informed of everything that happens in the world and be part of the trend to capture the attention of the public.

Being immersed in this era of digital interconnection, it is inevitable to recognize that there are advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

  • Greater speed in communications.

  • Access to various communication platforms.

  • Simplification of communication processes.

  • New forms of communication.

  • Collaborative tools.

  • Exchange of all types of information.

Disadvantages:

  • Data in the hands of third parties.

  • Digital harassment.

  • Online crime.

  • Invasive advertising.

  • Online addictions.

  • Lack of personal interaction.

On the other hand, we are all part of this great ICT revolution, and even if we are not generators of digital content, when we watch videos or react to other publications we are creating our own identity, classifying what we like and dislike.

Did you know that everyone has a digital identity?

Some types of digital identity are:

  • Personal or social: It is the digital identity that you usually find in social networks or communicative and collaborative platforms. It is used to share personal information with your friends or contacts. It can be applied to public or private profiles. It is generated in spaces where all kinds of people converge, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other types of networks. It exists to exchange information of common interests, from leisure to professional or scientific information.

  • Legal: The legal identity that you can have within the digital media contains all kinds of information about your behavior as an active entity of society. Contained in banking databases and financial transactions; it is the sensitive information that you register in normally secure platforms, dedicated to recording your important digital movements. As an example, disciplinary, banking, tax, and police records can be taken. Normally, they are regulated and controlled by governmental entities that, through laws and rules, protect your privacy and integrity.

  • Fictitious: It may sound illegal or criminal, but it is not. Although it is the modality used by hackers and computer criminals, it is not only used by them, it can also be used in cultural and artistic contexts, under pseudonyms that protect real information. Information is shared through profiles that represent in a dreamlike or fantastic way the reality of the users who create them; although it is not unknown that it is the most frequent practice of cyber criminals.

  • Organizational / Corporate: This type of profile is widely used to promote products and services, generating commercial links with users. The digital identity of organizations makes them fit in today's digital world, it is present on all digital platforms and its use is focused on enhancing the user experience and digital consumerism.

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Background illustration: Photo by geralt from Pixabay / Pixabay license