Since the dawn of time, people have communicated with others around them, and with today's technology people can interconnect with people all over the world. They have access to a wider range of peers and colleagues like no other time period, and the possibilities continue to advance these communications. Yet, as people around the world continue to make new friends and listen to the opinions of more and more people, they slowly develop a split personality. Although people have always had parallel identities, one for family and friends, and another for acquaintances and strangers, as Barbara Mellix points out in her essay. Mellix is ​​a writer and educator whose essay “From the Outside, In” recounts how she grew up learning two identities so she could function both in her personal world with close family and friends and in her world caring for others. Now, just as the world of others has expanded with the help of technology, the use of second identity has also taken the form of online identity. People's second online identity is always aggressively defensive, paranoid to the point that anything wrong said or unsaid could lead to a fight, and they tend to only be happy when there is someone to attack. In the physical world, where people are surrounded by true friends and people they trust with their emotions, they are more thoughtful and understanding of the pain of others. However, online identity poses a threat to personal identity as people begin to transfer traits from one identity to another. Although he doesn't have an online identity, Mellix can relate to an experience that involved confusing his identities. Mellix describes how when her personalities mixed, she was perplexed about who she was and who belonged in her personal identity… middle of paper… a family like the others, just like Mellix did with her sister. Over the years all people have safeguarded their personal identity from the risks of emotional pain that others can cause, and the recent use of online identity is another strengthening of this protection. However, this has led people to confuse which identity is the personal one and which is the online one, due to the development of carry-on technology. This can damage relationships with close friends and family who sometimes get confused with others. With the consequences of bringing aspects of online identity into personal identities, many people find it difficult to maintain the boundaries of these two. The first step is to understand the problem so you can better see how each identity can lock into place and still be able to protect it from any positional emotional scarring..