All in all
13 years ago
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
True or False Identity?
On the internet, you can create the person you want to be simply by your choice of images, words and approach to your blog/facebook/myspace, or whatever the page may be. How does this impact real-life friendships, acquaintances and your appearance outside of the computer? Do you think that it helps or hinders friendship in the real world? For example, if I'm trying to fit in with a baking group, I would paste a delicious, tempting, mouth-watering selection of homemade cup cakes on my blog. Then others will see these finely decorated beauties and realise that they might want to become friends with me, even though they may never have decided to do so in real life? Do they know the real me...do I really love baking, or am I shaping myself so that I can conform to a social situation? Ha ha :-) Just messing with your minds! I do really love baking, and this is me...but it is only a part of me and I wonder whether friends will start to stereotype and decide to choose or ignore friendships depending on your blog. I don't think this is the case with older people so much, but could definitely be a problem/great success with school-age children. What does everyone else think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You're such a deep thinker! You can never truly judge a person's character just by looking at their blog. I think the ability of children to create online personas that might not necessarily be an accurate reflection of their true self could either broaden or limit the scope of the type of people they might interact with online – depending on how they choose to represent themselves. Children are given the opportunity to re-invent themselves and might show a side of themselves that others may not have thought existed (and perhaps does not really exist) – in this way it may be a redeeming factor in such relationships. I think that it is important to emphasise to children the potential dangers of online identities on the net so they can understand the true nature of this online forum.
ReplyDeleteAs to whether or not online personas inhibits friendships in the real world, I personally am skeptical of the idea of making a 'friend' with a person with whom I have never met face to face. Online friendships lack so many of the characteristics that real life friendships have - including the spontaneity of response that may not be so important in the asynchronous web. Again, children should be warned. I don't know if I really answered your question, but that's my take on it so far...
I was thinking of the impact of an online identity on already established real-life friendships. Of course an online friendship can never be the same as a real life friendship. But what if you recreate yourself on the web so that your current friends like you better in real life? (I'm not talking about myself here in any way but I think it could occur in a school setting very easily!) I guess it probably would be a positive thing, because as you said, it would enable children to express different sides of themselves that they may not have thought existed. Thanks for your thoughtful response. I was just curious to hear what other people might be thinking :-)
ReplyDeleteThere's been quite a lot of research in this area. The emerging consensus is that youth use their online presence to experiment with or 'try out' various aspects of their identities, and that positive experiences online may translate into real life changes. That probably occurs most obviously with gay/lesbian youth, though there are plenty of other examples. With adults on the other hand, online identities tend to mirror offline identities more closely. That said, there are certainly cases where people, young or old, become lost in escapist fantasies online.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of making friends - there's also emerging evidence that youth use their online presence to forge friendships with others who share their interests but are not in the same geographical area - which ties into broader sociological theories about the rise of networked individualism in Western countries.
A few references if you’re interested:
J. Cabiria, ‘Virtual world and real world permeability: Transference of positive benefits for marginalized gay and lesbian populations’, Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, vol. 1, no. 1, http://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/284/215.
Global Kids et al. (2009). Meeting of minds: Cross-generational dialogue on the ethics of digital life. http://www.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7Bb0386ce3-8b29-4162-8098-e466fb856794%7D/DML-FOCUS-DIALOGUE-REPORT-0910.PDF
S. Stern, ‘Producing sites, exploring identities: Youth online authorship’, in D. Buckingham (ed.), Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, esp. pp. 103–4. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dmal.9780262524834.095
A. Thomas, Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age, Peter Lang, New York, 2007.