As I explained in my first post, I’ve decided to start a blog site using my real identity instead of an anonymous username. However this doesn't mean that I have abandoned those anonymous identities.  In fact, in many cases, using anonymous identities in conjunction with a separate email address can help you avoid some of the pitfalls of the online world.

While I truly believe using your real identity in social networks and blogs are more beneficial than using a pseudonym, there are many aspects of online life where hiding your real identity is not a bad thing.

Gaming

Gaming is all about escapism so why bring your real life into it in anyway. This is particularly true in Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games where you can play as anything from a wizard to a team commander.  Why not have a bit of fun with your avatar or your gamertag!

Forums

Forums are viewed by many as mini social networks that are specific to a particular topic and/or passion. However people who partake in these forums can sometimes have strong, to the point of extremist, viewpoints and get very defensive and abusive if you point out a differing opinion.

While most of the time these hostile feelings will merely fizzle out within the forum, why risk using your real name in the rare case where you might encounter these people in your life. Maybe if you both work in the same industry and meet each other one day, why risk the unnecessary friction or potentially worse. Much like real life, it’s all about keeping away from the crazies :)

Spam

One of the major benefits of having a anonymous email address is to reduce the amount of spam you receive in your emails. Whenever I am asked to enter my email address online when signing up for anything, or filling in a form for a competition; I use my anonymous email address and keep my personal email address for communications for work and close friends only.

As a result my spam email is restricted to about 3-4 per week, all of which are easily filtered by a decent spam filtering service. Using an anonymous email address instead of a fake one still allows you to sign up to online services without risking your personal email address becoming a spam/mailing list nightmare.

Online dating

Ok, so I guess this point might mainly be of benefit to any members of the fairer sex that might read this post. However it is something that anyone deciding to participate in the online dating world should do. Never put your full name on any dating site unless you really would like a bunch of Facebook/Twitter/G+ stalkers trying to friend you. In the world of online dating, you can never be too careful.

 

So while there can be lots of benefits from using your real identity online there are areas where anonymity has it’s advantages. Of course using your real identity online doesn’t mean opening up all your information to the open web. You don’t need to add your address and phone number details in your social network and you should always be aware of what applications are tracking and/or publishing your location (particularly mobile apps).

The ability to control your information easily is what has inspired me to use Google+. Facebook has always had similar controls however they were always cumbersome and difficult to understand and manage. I was going to post a link to a article explaining some of the ways you can control who sees your account information on Facebook, however as I typed this post they announced a new set of privacy and sharing controls which may make some previous methods irrelevant.