The movie Salt gives us insight into deep culture's conception of how many profiles one person can have.

Observation: In the movie Salt and in other spy movies we have seen a move from a single profile of a spy (James Bond) to a multiple profile spy (Salt) in which Salt is a spy, a counter-spy, and a counter-counter-spy. People nowadays seem to have no problem following this plot line and character (the wilderness of mirrors.) This is addition to her 2 "cover" profiles which would exist in each national culture.

Observation: In high schools now kids are no longer exclusively nerds, jocks, stoners, etc. Each of these can be short-lived roles even within a single day.

Observation: Facebook and Linked in are used by the same people in very different ways.

The Question: How many different profiles can a person have? And, how many different profiles of 1 person can other people keep track of?

Answer: I think the answer is 3 to 5. We see Facebook, LinkedIn, and usually peoples corporate in-company profile, and their personal profile (usually mediated through the channels of email/phone-calls/text messages. From the movie Salt we see 5. It is without a doubt more than 1.

References

Chris Messina talked about people having 5 profiles in NY at the Overlap event.

Why spies, counter-spies, and counter-counter spies are so popular right now.

The Official Site for the Movie Salt

Comments on high-school groups (I'm still looking for my reference)

See Also

Shoptimism