Manage your online identity.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a study today regarding the growing role the internet plays in our major life decisions (full pdf). Authored by John Horrigan and Lee Rainie, the key findings indicate we’re going to the internet more and more to research very important personal decisions. According to Horrigan and Rainie, we’re using the net in greater numbers to research illness (particularly the major illness of a loved one), career guidance, investment and major financial decisions, where we want to live, and where we want to send our children to school.

We’re using the internet to support our decisions, both large and small. Notably, the survey doesn’t cover the behavior we’re most interested in - how we research each other. However, there’s plenty of evidence, anecdotal and otherwise. The internet is playing a role in the decisions we make about each other - and these decisions influence the jobs we can get, the friends we make, and our family’s opinion of us (your mom Googles you, its true). And just like we can get bum advice from bad websites while researching those major decisions Pew examined, your identity in search can be good or bad - and you’ve got no control over it. We’re trying to change this. We’re trying to give you a sense of empowerment. We’re building technology that works, that begins to give you control over your online identity. We need to start talking about these issues, and we encourage you to join the conversation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Dispatches from a beta, claimID.