A thought that constantly springs to mind when writing a new post on my blog, is what on earth does everyone reading think of me? Looking at the traffic sources, there are a few people reading my posts who don't know me in real life, nor do they appear to follow me on twitter; my blog is all they have to obtain an impression of me and my character. But is it accurate? I scarcely write blog posts, in fact, a post from June last year is still on the home page. How is it possible to build up an impression of me from these few posts?

I would love to be able to say that I doubt anyone does judge me from what I write because there is so little information about me in them, but that would be untrue – it's human nature. When we meet people, watch a video they've made, read their blog, anything that can give us the slightest hint of their character, we will begin to build up a picture of them in our mind. Think about a person you ‘met' for the first time in the past couple of weeks. I write ‘met' because it doesn't have to be someone in the real world, that person doesn't even have to know that you ‘met' them; it could simply be a YouTuber or a blogger. When you pull them into your mind, think of everything you associate with them and their character, as if those associations were labels. When that person popped into your head, it is likely that you have already decided whether you like them or not. But do you know enough about them to make that judgement?

Of course you don't. You probably know very few or none of their defining characteristics. You don't know what they do at home or with their friends, or what was running through their head at the time of writing/filming/whatever. You don't know any of their life events, their experiences, or their hardships. In short, you don't know anything that could possibly give you a right to judge them, yet you do. Even more interestingly, you are judging them based on what they are choosing to show you.

Let me explain that last point. In my spare time, I make video blogs on YouTube. In those videos, I generally appear to be quite confident and talkative, yet if anyone were to meet me in real life, I would probably be incredibly shy and awkward. I edit my Vlogs and refilm various parts of it in order to not make myself seem like an idiot, but in doing so, I make myself seem less like me. I also don't tell my viewers everything that goes on in my life, all of my thoughts and opinions, everything about my past – and why should I? Almost every hint of my character that you can obtain through any of the mediums I present myself through, is there because of a conscious decision made by myself. I don't post absolutely everything I do on twitter, I don't write all my thoughts on Facebook and I don't tell you my life history on my YouTube channel.

This extra degree of control over how people see you, is part of what makes online relations so interesting, and what separates them from interacting in ‘the real world.' When you meet someone in person, they can easily see your mannerisms, they can tell when you aren't sure what to say, and you have little control over the way you put your point of view across, unless you have prepared what you are going to say beforehand. Compare texting to a real life conversation. If it is a delicate subject matter, you may write out a text, read it, change parts of it to make them seem more conscientious and then send it. When speaking to someone in person, you have very little time to decide what to say and how to say it, in fact, your reply will often be formulated part way through speaking and, unless you are incredibly lucky, it is likely that you are going to mess up once in a while.

I am not saying that every person on the Internet censors their tweets/statuses/videos/blogs in this way, in fact, some people would probably benefit from a tad more censorship. I also don't redraft every single text message I send, and I try to write things as I would speak them (which frequently comes across in my writing). But my point still stands.

In the digital age, we have more control over how people see us. It is possible for us to play a character online, for us to become someone completely different to who we are in real life. I know a few people who have an alter ego online, some are very discreet about it and try to keep it completely separate, and others integrate it with their personal lives in such a way that they may appear slightly schizophrenic to those around them. These alter egos are our own creations; we decide who they are, what they're like and what they do. We are modelling our very own human being, whose role we then step into. But is it really a different person, or is that alter ego a reflection of our true self? Surely the person who you want to be, is the real you?

Your views on that last statement will be largely dependent on your locus of control. If you have an external locus of control, that last statement will most likely seem ridiculous to you. After all, we are who we are and we have no control over that, right? Our personality has been created through our genetic makeup, our life experiences and fate. We don't control what kind of person we are, and constructing a personality which we can step into will never change that. There's only one of us, with one personality type and set of mannerisms, isn't there?

People with an internal locus of control beg to differ. But why? Well, because are in control of our lives and what goes on in them. We can shape ourselves to be whatever we want to be, we aren't simply limited by fate and our genes, our personality can be whatever we want it to become. If we construct a character and decide that is who we want to be, what's stopping us? Nothing. You are what you make of yourself.

Yes, I realise that in counter to that previous paragraph, you could say that the decision of who we want to be must be innate because else how would we get to that point? If we didn't already have a personality in place, with all of our traits, why would a certain personality appeal to us? This entire argument could just turn into a vicious cycle. My point is, I believe that you can make what you want of yourself, if you would like to be someone different then there is nothing to stop you.

I digress. Actually, this entire article has become a digression, but the points relate to the main subject. The idea is, you are completely in control of how people perceive you on the Internet, and to a lesser extent, in real life. Your alter ego may be a completely fictional construct, or it may be a reflection of your true self, either way, you are the one presenting them to the public, and you can completely change the public's perception of you.

The question for those of you out there with alter egos is: which of these alter egos is the real you, and which one would you prefer it to be?