Exploring Our Inner-self in Cyberspace
Cyberspace is a new communication medium which enables us to understand our social behavior. In the ‘real world’ and ‘virtual world,’ we understand ourselves by developing aspects of our identity. However, in the virtual world, we can explore our inner-self without rejection that may be experienced in the real world. Cyberspace is, thus, a psychological ‘space’ to build and form, explore and discover, and accept and understand ourselves. To explain this, we must view this on an individual and collective perspective. Identity in cyberspace allows an individual to construct themselves, and culture in cyberspace allows individuals to engage in social interactions which involve identity construction. Nevertheless, there are advantages and disadvantages to identity and culture in cyberspace which will be discussed.
We represent ourselves digitally in various ways to construct our identities. Operating anonymously by constantly changing aliases is a way for nobody to know your true identity, yet you are still trying to figure out who you are. Sherry Turkle believed that ‘most use the digital domain to exercise a more true identity, or a multiplicity of identities.” (Silver, 2003). According to Turkle, we create online identities to help understand our offline lives. An example is the use of avatars, where individuals create an icon to represent themselves. We construct ourselves by allowing our true self be viewed by people worldwide without the fear of rejection. Turkle claims that the online world allows us to “project ourselves into our own dramas, dramas in which we are producer, director, and star.” (Soules, 2001). We create fictional characters with different personali...
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...ss: http://www.com.washington.edu/rccs/intro.asp Retrieved: November 18, 2004
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In “Modern Romance,” Celeste Biever describes romantic relationships in the Internet community. She describes how people can romantically be involved on the Internet and how the Internet teaches one to learn about a person from the inside out.In “Cyberspace and Identity,” Sherry Turkle also expresses her interest in the Internet and how it allows for the act of self-exploration. Even though their focus on what the Internet is used for are different from the perspective of one another, Biever and Turkle both see the Internet as a place for exploration in a general sense.
Individuals conceived between the years of 1980 and 2000, as indicated by this article, experience serious difficulties finding their actual self due to the online networking outlets; they regularly depict another person life of a fantasy dream American life on the web. As today’s more youthful era makes the transition to adulthood, trying to accommodate between online and offline characters can be hard. “Van den Bergh asked 4,056 individuals, ages 15 to 25, when they felt they were or weren't being genuine online or logged off, with companions, folks, accomplices or employers.” Through this research he found,
In both works, the authors identify how the influence on technology is changing how humans identify themselves. Carr using his experience to explain this idea giving the reader the idea that he is feeling the effect technology is taking in his identity. “Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory “(53). He gives the reader a firsthand insight of how the influence of technology has change his own identity changing his mind as a whole. He also gives the example of becoming machinelike. A metaphor he uses to explain that humans are becoming emotionless, and less caring for certain ideas. They are becoming cold and brainless are the new part of their identity altering the ability to think. While, Turkle uses everyday life examples to emphasize this point. She states that people create avatars online to be represent their self the way they want to be. However, being able to change a certain aspect of an individual life alters the way they perceive who they are. According to Turkle “people who gain fluency in expressing multiples aspect of self may find it harder develop authentic selves. Some people who write narratives for their screen avatars may grow up with too little experience to share their real feelings with other people” (289). The meaning behind Turkle words is that technology is influencing how individuals view themselves, and become remapping the idea that humans are social
Over the years people have all safeguarded their personal identities for the risks of emotional pain that others can cause, the recent use of the online identity being another fortification to this protection. However this has lead people to confuse which identity is their personal one and which is their online one, because of the development of taking technology with you. This can harm one’s relationships with close friends and family that sometimes get confused for the others. With the consequences of bring aspects of online identity into personal identities, many people find it hard to maintain the boundaries of these two. The first step is to understand the problem so one can better see how each identity can fix into its place and still be able to protect them from any positional emotional scarring.
In an article called “Relationships, community, and Identity in the New Virtual Society” Arnold Brown explains two different identities one that he calls “found identity” and the other “made identity” (34). The found identity is one that is created by one true self, it’s based off your background, your religion, your sex, everything that truly defines who you really are. And then there’s your made identity the one you make for yourself and how you wished to be seen. As technology advances, the easier it will be for young girls to create these made identity’s of out these famous celebrities, having them focus on things that don’t matter instead of valuing who they really are.
Holeton, Richard. Composing Cyberspace Identity, Community, and Knowledge in the Electronic Age. The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc. 1998. Reid and Count Zero. Cult of the Dead Cow. March 2003. 30 September 2003. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/interviews/reidcount. html>
Works Cited The Matrix. Larry Wachowski, DVD, Warner Brothers, 1999; Bruskman, Amy. "Finding One's Own in Cyberspace" Composing Cyberspace Edited by Rich Holeton, San Fransisco: McGraw Hill, 1998, 171-180 Rheingold, Howard. " The Heart of the Well" " Composing Cyberspace Edited by Rich Holeton, San Fransisco: McGraw Hill, 1998, 151-163
...order to get better jobs and earn more money, to get to the good life, yet influenced by what colleges want them to learn and what employers want them to know: these all may or may not be the same thing. What employers want out of college graduates is also based on money: who can do the job the fastest and best, who can save or make money for the business. What is clear is that the university or college which is purely a "meeting of the minds," a place for people to gather and learn for the sake of learning, seems to be becoming a thing of the past. It is being replaced by an increasingly commercialized system of higher education: one that costs more and more each year--with the cost rising much faster than the rate of household incomes, and one that is being altered by the needs of an increasingly diverse student population and the needs of the business world.
"Finding One's Own in Cyberspace." Composing Cyberspace. Richard Holeton. United States: McGraw-Hill, 1998. 171-178. SafeSurf. Press Release.
Dretzin, Rachel, prod. Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Fron. Dir. Rachel Dretzin. 2010. PBS. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
.... She says online identity is textual based but technology has furthered itself to make it visual and textual based. Turkle also says that cyberspace is a relatively consequence-free moratorium yet it seems to me that there is nothing relative at all about it. It has many consequences. She states that online identity expands and affects real identity but I disagree. I believe that online identity can not affect real identity because they should be the same. No one should play around with online identities because when returning to reality, a person will have a false sense of security and self. The world has moved on from Freudian ideas to new social practices of identity as multiplicity.
Before the internet, our characteristics such as style, identity, and values were primarily exposed by our materialistic properties which psychologists define as the extended self. But people’s inferences to the idea of online self vs. offline self insisted a translation to these signals into a personality profile. In today’s generation, many of our dear possessions have been demolished. Psychologist Russell W belk suggest that: “until we choose to call them forth, our information, communications, photos, videos, music, and more are now largely invisible and immaterial.” Yet in terms of psychology there is no difference between the meaning of our “online selves” and “offline selves. They both assist us in expressing important parts of our identity to others and provide the key elements of our online reputation. Numerous scientific research has emphasized the mobility of our analogue selves to the online world. The consistent themes to these studies is, even though the internet may have possibly created an escape from everyday life, it is in some ways impersonating
Ethel Cindy R. Lucero English M01A Ms. Janet Cross April 16, 2001 A Gender Twist One great allure of computerized communication systems is their ability to allow participants to effortlessly reshape their selves and their appearance through the manipulation of words and images or representations rather than through modification of the physical body, a process requiring access to advanced biomedical technologies beyond the reach of most individuals. These communication systems allow people to escape boundaries and categories that have in the past constrained their activities and their identities. In communication, knowing the identity of those with whom you communicate is essential for understanding and evaluating an interaction. Yet in the disembodied world of the virtual community, identity is also ambiguous. Many of the basic cues about personality and social role we are accustomed to in the physical world are absent.
The Web. 11 Nov. 2013.. http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/teens-social-media_b50664> Floridi, Luciano. The Construction Of Personal Identities Online. Minds & Machines 21.4 (2011): 477-479.
This paper aims to explore the different reasons behind people having different personas in Twitter and real-life through a look at how the social networking site provides a unique opportunity for self...