My Online Persona

Social media and other digital communication platforms have increasingly become an
important part of people’s lives. Many people have at least one account in one of three or four
major social media platforms. Like many people, social media plays an important role in my
life. Hardly a day passes before I log in into my social media account. I mainly use social
media to keep in touch with friends. Additionally, as a nurse, I use my online presence to
network with other healthcare professionals. Social media platforms have been found to be
important sources of knowledge for healthcare professionals (Reinbeck & Antonacci, 2019).
To benefit from this aspect of social media, I am in multiple healthcare-related groups that
help me to acquire valuable knowledge and develop expertise in my field.
Outside of these groups, I do not have a particularly active online persona. Part of this
relative inactiveness can be attributed to my personality. I am generally a reserved person.
According to Lefebvre et al., social media and other digital communication platforms have
allowed people to craft online personas that are different from their offline ones (2020).
However, I am one of those people whose online and offline personas are quite similar.
My relative reserve online can also be attributed to my profession. Healthcare
professionals are advised to keep their social life separate from their professional life (Wang
et al., 2019). To this end, I try as much as possible to avoid any form of online interaction
with my patients. However, no matter how hard I try, there is always the possibility of
accepting a friend request from a patient without knowing that they are a patient or being
‘followed’ by a patient. Due to the possibility that my patients could read what I post online, I
am usually very careful about what I post. I also seek to minimize my interactions to only
people that I know well, often colleagues and friends from college and high school.

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In conclusion, social media platforms have allowed people to develop offline and
online personas. Granted, there are many benefits of having an online presence. However, as
a professional, it is difficult to maintain the online persona in a manner that ensures that one’s
online presence does not affect their offline professional practice.

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References

Lefebvre, C., McKinney, K., Glass, C., Cline, D., Franasiak, R., Husain, I., & Stopyra, J.
(2020). Social Media Usage Among Nurses: Perceptions and Practices. JONA: The
Journal of Nursing Administration, 50(3), 135-141.
Reinbeck, D., & Antonacci, J. (2019). How nurses can use social media to their
advantage. Nursing2019, 49(5), 61-63.
Wang, Z., Wang, S., Zhang, Y., & Jiang, X. (2019). Social media usage and online
professionalism among registered nurses: A cross-sectional survey. International
Journal of Nursing Studies, 98, 19-26.