Virtual Identities

People who spend multiple hours plugged into the virtual world maintain two personas: a real-life self and a digital-self. A person’s virtual persona is created to escape reality. However, the boundaries between what’s real and what’s cybernetic are becoming blurred. These technologies that make this possible are “reconstructing the self and its world”. People get the chance to escape into a world with no consequences, which directly effects how they participate in the real world.

In the article, Webs of Identity, the authors describe both sides of the argument of whether the web is beneficial to socially adapting or whether it proves detrimental to it’s users. Some positives to inventing ourselves on the web include, a feeling of inclusion, personal expression and the fact that we can connect socially with a multitude of people that we couldn’t have communicated with otherwise. Additionally, the story Sherry Turkle recounted about Pete and his online wife on Second Life, illustrates how creating an alternative world online makes it easier to talk to others and express difficult feelings. Pete is able to be his ‘better self’ online and cope with his issues so that he can go home to his real wife and be ok. His Second Life wife is almost like his therapist in a way. However, the “internet is seen as either replacing existing strong ties or as interfering with the development of new strong ties”. In my opinion, the negatives of an online identity weigh out the good. People get lost in the idea of their own virtual world; they mix the aspects of what is real and what is not. They create online profiles exemplified in the show Catfish, where they pose as someone completely different and deceive others into having deep intimate relationships with them. Because they are posing as someone else, they are messing with the other person’s feelings and well being. They take their freedom of creative expression and abuse it. I do understand that most of the people that do this are trying to deal with some major psychological or social issues but because of this possibility of virtual identities, they are handling their problems through the wrong outlet.

Jurgenson posits in his article that social media permeates every aspect of society. There is no real way to go offline or unplugged. Even when we have our phones in our pockets and are enjoying life around us we are thinking about posting a photo to Instagram or how this activity would be a great status update on Facebook. Additionally, our fetish with the offline life is evident in our obsession to compete with each other on how we do not have a Facebook or how we are not using our phones at dinner. We become so fanatic about trying to maintain an offline lifestyle and the reversion of older days without technology. We add filters to our Instagram pictures like ‘1997’ or burnt faded edges like the picture was taken decades ago. We live in a world where we are obsessed with trying to revert back to a different time yet we do this by consuming the new technology at our fingertips.

With this new technology comes innovation in all aspects of society, especially education. During my Second Life experience I realized that there really is no point in it. Yes, it does allow people from all over the world to meet, communicate and run around to various lands. But, the concept is still foreign to me why we would integrate virtual worlds into our education system. I believe that face to face contact should still be valued. Most children prefer a hands on approach to learning and being able to actually interact with their teacher and students helps children to grow intellectually and socially. If young kids start using virtual worlds instead of going to school, they would not be able to function in real society because all they know is a world full of possibilities with no consequences for their actions. Also, through my use of the application, it was hard to talk and contribute to discussion during class. If you are not that talkative and are rather shy like me I felt awkward trying to add my thoughts because of people talking over each other.

Society has been constantly evolving and citizens need to adapt to an ever-changing lifestyle filled with faced paced conversations and virtual realities. New technologies make life easier in ways and harder in other ways. Moreover, online identities are detrimental to children’s capacity to make difficult decisions and grow as a well-adjusted and educated member of society. We as citizens of this technological age must find ways to efficiently integrate technologies into our life and be able to maintain a healthy balance. If we become totally engrossed in our technologies and forget our ways of the past, society, as we know it will change drastically, and in my opinion, for the worst.