It has only taken over 25 years for an estimated 3 billion people worldwide to have created

an online digital identity. In the digital identity module written by Dr. Maggie Hartnett, 
Digital Identity is described as a person who represents how the individual is perceived, and
this has an impact on how individuals operate and their reputation within their
communities. (Page 114). However, Williams, Fleming, Lundqvist, and Parslow (2013)
described Digital Identity as the persona that an individual exhibits across all digital
communities that she or he is represented, and which includes the different roles they play
as educators, learners and mentors, among other things.

In addition, the article has revealed some fundamental restrictions of how digital identity
might influence how you and others display yourself across multiple digital platforms and
across time. For example, if you google yourself, what does the information that comes up
say about you as a learner, worker, community member, or citizen? You have developed a
role of image for yourself, which is an important feature of digital identity, and being aware
of how others may interpret them is an important component of controlling your online
reputation. As a result, the article noted that we must be capable and confident learners in
the digital age, which necessitates knowledge and abilities beyond the use of technology. 
Following that, (Mead, 1932). (p. 39) described digital identity as an agency with the ability
to evolve through social means and personal experience. For example, one of the
constraints of digital identity was the nature of social media, which allows people to
communicate and share information among individuals and groups, supporting the
embodiment of the agency or organisation. The freedoms that arise from the internet are
also associated with forms of digital harm such as cyber-bullying and continual social
comparison (Underwood & Ehrenreich, 2017).  

Furthermore, the enormous volume of personal data generated and gathered via social
networking sites, as well as how it is utilised by collectors and third parties, must be
acknowledged, necessitating attention and a critical approach towards our own data
(Pangrazio & Selwyn, 2017). Big data and accompanying third-party analysis raise ethical
dilemmas that extend beyond individual privacy concerns (Zwitter, 2016). Furthermore,
other affordances in social media include a large number of adolescents who are heavily
engaged with social media and text messages. George and Odgers (2016); Lenhart (2015).
According to psychological theories and research techniques, digital communication has a
negative impact on teenage relationships and adjustment.

Teenagers, for example, contribute to the content of digital communication that defines
their lives, and there may be substantial continuity between adolescents' offline and online
lives (Subrahmanyam, Smahel, & Greenfield, 2006). In contrast, the article states that
psychologists should understand developmental psychopathology in order to assist young
people at risk, and that psychologists should all embrace careful study of the content of
adolescents' online communication, as well as talk to caregivers with their children about
their own online interactions and become more intimate with social media themselves, and
lastly, in preventative and treatment programmes, physicians should address teenagers'
online social life. Thus, it allows us to act under our own free will and choose who, what,
and when we participate in social media, because, as Dr. Maggie Harnett points out, it is a
potent reason why so many of us are engaged in social media spaces, and being confident as
learners in the twenty-first century necessitates knowledge and understanding about the
digital age self.

Reference:
Underwood, M. K., & Ehrenreich, S. E. (2017). The power and the pain of
adolescents’ digital communication: Cyber victimization and the perils of lurking.
American Psychologist, 72(2), 144-158. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0040429