Aspects of the Self

For last week's class Professor Bakioglu asked us to read Sherry Turkle's Introduction: Identity in the Age of the Internet. Turkle's most compelling argument in her paper is that one’s identity is ever changing and the boundaries between both the real and virtual worlds are, in her words, eroding (10). She explores the notion that the virtual world allows us to display multiple aspects of our personality—a liberty that we don’t necessarily have in the real world. However the boundaries between the virtual and real worlds are breaking down because technology makes immersing oneself into the virtual world less isolating. Our confrontation with technology collides with our human identity; virtual realms encourage events like cyberspace marriage, computer psychotherapist s, robot insects and virtual sex, to name a few. It is no longer a singular interaction with the machine, cyber communities host interactions between multiple virtual identities/personas therefore complicating the relationship between man and machine.

I’m currently in the process of finding my own identity in the age of the Internet through our AIM project. Approaching the project made me wonder what aspect of myself I haven’t yet explored. Without giving too much away and compromising my identity to my chat partners, I wanted to be someone that I dream of being in the future. When I began chatting with another virtual persona, I struggled at first to remove my RL self from the chat room. Without rehashing my entire character biography I submitted to the professor, I had to figure out a writing tone that would sufficiently reflect my future self. To some extent, I do have some emotional connection to my virtual identity because it’s what I aspire to be in 10-15 years. However, I obviously don’t have the true mentality and experience that my 30 or 35 year-old self would have. Having the freedom to impose my hopes for my future self onto this virtual identity has actually been a really liberating experience. Due to the need to keep our identities confidential, the omission of any profile picture or video chat forces my chat partner and I to heavily rely on text-based descriptions and interactions to develop a relationship, similar to the MUDs. As Turkle points out,

“The anonymity of MUDs-one is known on the MUD only by the name of one’s character or characters-gives people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and try out new ones…Identity, after all, refers to the sameness between two qualities, in this case between a person and his or her persona”

                                                                                                                (Turkle, 12)

            The only difference between MUDs and an AIM one-on-one chat experiences is that I don’t really have the liberty to create multiple identities. I have to stay true to my screen name and attempt to not deviate from my established identity. As I continue to delve deeper into communication with my chat buddies, my goal is to remain conscious of my two separate but simultaneously similar personas.

            Computer mediated communications have evolved over the past couple decades into an easily accessible mode of communicating. It has become an aspect of our direct everyday lives that is second nature to our daily tasks. I can indulge my virtual persona and my virtual relationship on my smart phone on my way to class, at the gym, and at dinner. Because the youth has found a way to embrace these new mediums of communication and relationship building we continue to find our own meaning in technology therefore overcoming our initial fear. Of course this newfound relationship we have with AIM, Skype, Second Life and other social networking sites is ever changing and it’s expected that in the near future we could face another mode of computer mediated communications that we will have to find our own meaning in.