Identity and Communication Online

I found Howard Rheignold's Chapter 5 in his book The Virtual Community to be quite interesting. I had wondered for quite a while what those who immerse themselves in virtual worlds thought of their own identities. He wrote that "similar to the way previous media dissolved social boundarries related to time and space, the latest computer-mediated communications media seem to dissolve boundaries of identity as well". In other words, communication via the internet blurs the lines of identity.

Finally, I had found some concrete source that said what I had thought. I had, overtime recently, asked a few people who play online games (like MUDs) or worship social networking (I have several friends that I think are addicted to MySpace and Facebook) what they thought of interaction through the internet. How in-depth could a relationship with somebody, either near or far, get just using that medium? Wouldn't who the "real" person was get hidden by who they wanted others to percieve them as? Their answers always confused me, if not at first, then eventually.

"It's not really pretending because you do talk to other people", one would say.
"Yeah, but you're pretending to be a knight in some fantasy-land", I'd retort.
"You don't get it", was always inevitable.

But I tried to get it. I really did. I've never been the kind of girl who is comfortable being ignorant, even though I might never be that into whatever the subject at hand was. I wanted to know and even tried my hand at Second Life, but do I get it? Truly? No.

I can't help but to think that when interacting with unknown (in the real world, at least) others, how much true interaction is possible? Rheingold says that in MUDs people are "pretending to be somebody else, or even pretending to be several different people at the same time". Therefore, the true self becomes the fantasy self.

Frustrated more than ever, I asked a guy I know, who plays these kinds of games online, what he thought. He automatically began to defend what he enjoyed doing when I had asked about his feelings concerning the whole communication and identity issue. He said that he had even heard of people who had gotten married after they met online through games. I then had sarcastically noted that I wondered how long that would last. Then he said something I found rather interesting. He asked how much misrepresentation I thought went on in online dating services.

The man had made a good point. While I didn't think it as odd to meet another person on Match.com and have a relationship, I did in Second Life. I'd have to rethink it all. My head was begining to ache. Ugh! In the end, although I still agree with Rheingold, I decided to go with "to each their own".

Second Life...the next time around

For class, we were asked to investigate a virtual world. I decided to try Second Life again. I began optimistic but that feeling soon diminished. It took me nearly a half an hour to get away from a page that discusses SL to another where users can log in. I almost gave up!

Finally, when I was able to log in (thank God I could remember my info.), I had to figure out how to get where other people were. Honestly, it was harder than I thought it would be but, eventually, I got to where other people were.

Finding work was easier this time around for me. I found that the easiest jobs were the ones where a user could just sign up for emails and get $1 or take daily surveys for money. I know that in SL a user could actually pay (in real life) to get SL money but I'm just not that invested in the game. I am, however, guessing that that's how many people have enough money to own land and homes.

I have explored the game quite a few times since but just can't manage to get that into it. I'm assuming that if there are tons of people that enjoy SL, I might just be doing something wrong. Maybe it's because I'm alone in the game.

Second Life- My Original Experience

The first time that I had ever played Second Life was a couple of years ago for another class. At first, I was having a lot of fun creating my avatar. Afterwards, I went exploring. I quickly got bored with this because most of the people I had encountered were foreign and not very good with English, not that I could speak their languages anyhow.

From there, I began a disheartening search for shoes since mine were just not working with the outfit as a whole. I then quickly figured out that you need money to buy stuff and the $10 that the game sets you up with just doesn't cut it. I was going to need more than $10 for what I wanted.

I decided to get a job. Unfortunately, looking for one wasn't easy. I tried asking others for advice but, like I said, most of those I met were not English speakers. Eventually, I met a person who said that they wanted to help me. He asked me to come to his house, and I did. Long story short, I felt unconfortable (yes, even as an avatar) and ditched him as fast as I could. After that experience, I didn't go back until recently.