• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Social/Public Media

Can Online Identity Shape IRL Presence?

March 12, 2014 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: < 1 minutes

benabiosxswI had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Jeff Benabio speak at SXSW. IRL versus online identity.

Here’s how he opened: “By day I work with Kaiser Permanente; by night I’m @dermdoc.”

I’ve introduced myself the same way many times.  Tongue-in-cheek, we play our digital presence as some other part of ourselves. A space and identity separate and distinct from real life. I’d say this is the rule rather than the exception. Sociologist Nathan Jurgenson has called this digital dualism.

Going forward I suspect that this ice breaking comment won’t make much sense.  Our digital selves will meld with our medical meat space identity.  The digital divide will decay into a charming bit of history.

And perhaps the online/offline relationship is shifting. Eric Schmidt in The New Digital Age notes,

“The shift from having one’s identity shaped off-line and projected online to an identity that is fashioned online and experienced off-line will have implications for citizens, states and companies as they navigate the new digital world.”

I’ve known Jeff for some time but had never met him. I will add that he’s as brilliant and gifted a communicator in person as he is online. Or perhaps it’s the other way around.

Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Related Articles

  • My Immeasurable Digital Life
  • Online Doctors
  • Online Reputation - No Cure for Bad Medicine

Tagged With: SXSW

Related Articles

  • My Immeasurable Digital Life
  • Online Doctors
  • Online Reputation - No Cure for Bad Medicine

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

Context Collapse and the Public Physician

Doctors and social media: Damned if you engage, damned if you don’t

100,000 Connected Lemmings

Doctors and the Endemic Culture of Permission

The Case for New Physician Literacies in the Digital Age

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy