Some of my fellow bloggers at The Daily Scribe sparked a discussion about blogging and online personæ. Making Chutney began with Questions: Secret identities and the bloggers code, wherein he relates the story of a blogger who was recently "outed" by another blogger and asks some interesting questions about the morality of this and of blogging under a pseudonym. Arbitrary Marks responded with her take On Blogging Pseudoanonymously. She brings up an intriguing point about whether writing behind the mask of a pseudonym, giving you a certain freedom to create any persona you like, would begin to affect your real personality. It's an interesting question.

For anyone who is blogging about something that may not be accepted by everyone in our "real" lives it isn't difficult to understand why using a pseudonym is not only morally acceptable but sometimes necessary. But I think it would be both fascinating and revealing to put Arbitrary Marks' question about personality to the test.

One of the commenters to Arbitrary Marks' post referred to The Johari Window. This test was developed in the 1950's to compare how we perceive ourselves with how others perceive us, but can easily be used to compare how we are perceived by those who know us only by our online persona with how we are perceived by those who know us in "real" life. Which brings me to the interesting experiment.

For those of you who know me by reading my blog, I ask you to indulge my "scientific" curiosity by going to this link and choosing the five or six words you think best describe the persona you perceive. I will ask those who know me in "real" life to do the same. Later this week, I'll post the results of the experiment. Thanks!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 11:24 AM