Psychology of Online Virtual Relationships
 
CYBER WHAT???
 By Fred K. Yuen
Instructions for this report
 
Topics On Virtual Relationships
 
    There are many different topics on virtual relationships.  Due to the little known about the virtual life, there is know clear explaination on the reasons why people interact in the way they do.  exerpts from a listserve discussion on virtual relationships mainly focused on false identities.  They talked about the reasones someone might pretend to be someone else on the internet.  One of the reasons was to fit in and be exepted.  An example of this would be a male pretending to be a female to interact in a womens support group.  This might be the only way a male can learn about what a female thinks, or what type of things they talk about.

    Another reason that made sence was the notion that evryone has sub-identities.  people have a core identity that acts different in different situations.  An example of this would be the diffence a child acts in front of his teacher in apose to infront of his friends.  As one can imagine the difference, in some cases, could be substantialy different.  Does this mean the child is giving a "FALSE IDENTITY?"

    I agree that people interact differently with others but why do they go to extreems and act totaly differenly?  Could one of the reasons be that they have no limits.  No one is there to tell you that you are stupid, and if they do you can simply change your identity.  There really is no punishments for actions.  If a man interacts as a women no one will call him a homosexual.  In this case why not explore different regions of society by interacting as someone other than yourself.  We can only hope that this type of behavior does not interfere with the developement of a virtual society.

    An academic scientist talks about virtual relationships as a part of a virtual comunity.  He explains that there i s more than interactions when someon reacts.  There is another world, a settlement, or a comunity.  People are socialising online and there are different places yoiu can go to socialize.  The last topic he touches up on is "Cyber Archeology."  This is a whole new world where people have not yet realized.  There is so much places to go but yet there is still boundries and space.  Not real space but cyber space.

    I also feel that we hyave another community under our noses.  The only aspect that i am concerned about is the validity of these comunities.  If someone can not be punished for therir actions, and they can interact under any and many identities how do we know who we are interacting with.  Is the person speeking telling the truth?  We can only tell if there is some past to juge from.  If we do not know, we could be easily victimized and come out with the wrong answers or we will simply not believe the answers we are consuming.

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Places to Interact

    There are more than enough places to interact with people on the interact.  The minut you log on to the internet you are interacting with another person.  You are either judging the others work or you are using it.  Popular places to interact would be the fallowing:  Chatrooms, Forums, Clubs, Services, Lobbies, Confrences, Gamerooms, Internet Cafes, etc.  Rather than spending your time on writing about all this I explored chatrooms.  In chat rooms you can interact with people across the world. Here people meet in a neutral room where there is a list of the rest of the people in the room.  Some people are interacting all together and some are not.  You can send a private message and/or you can enrter a private room.  Once you meet someone the conversation can be good or bad.  Durring the conversations I experiences I felt that the women wanted a relationship.  Not a lover but they mainly wanted to eperience a relationship with others.  I then went in as a girl and noticed that the men juimped all over me.  They where into more of a sexual relationship and they wanted to talk to me in more of a sleezy way.  Being a man, I DID NOT INTERACT IN THAT WAY.
 
  I'm not saying this is what everyone is like but this is what I experienced on the chat.  There is also buisiness type chat lines.  Here you can go and get information on certain subjects.  This is good to learn and express your feelings.  I went on these chats to find out aboyt music and the music buissiness.  Oh boy did I learn a lot.  Here i learned the things that I could do and the things that others thought I should not do.  I suggest this one over the others if you are more seriouse.

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What Virtual Relationships Mean to me

    I feel that virtual relationships is an interesting way to interact with people.  One can have many different relationships on the internet and to what extent the relationship depends on the person.  I prefer to interact as myself.  I can realy find out what people think of me without my past or physic getting in the way.  The people I interact with judge me for what I say and give me honest feedback for the situations I speak of.

    I also feel that fantacy is a good break from reality and is healthy for my brain.  I get real creative and the fun is of the wall.  The only thing that bothers me is the fact that the people I am interacting with mighht not know that this is not the real me.  They do not know who I really am, and they do not know how I act in person.  But do they really need to know?  If our relationships stay on the internet then this is fine but once they cross lines between the outer world and the internet world this could be trouble.  I feel it is wrong to have two identities with in the same world.  There is a difference between adapting to different people and acting totaly like a different person.

    Here are some other students ideas on virtual relationships:
                          Mirini (G5)        It is essential to be computer illiterate.  I feel that there are many
                                                cyber handicaps that no one takes into consideration.  I can not
                                                type and I feel this is the major reason I am impatient on the
                                                internet.
                          Shintani (G5)    There is another reality in the mind.  In fact there can be severeral
                                                depending on the person and the situation.
                          Francis (G5)      How long is your thread?  This is the path in which someone
                                                takes to get somewhere.  I feel that if people know the different
                                                pathways someone takes that could hold as validity to how much
                                                you really know them.

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Other G8 Reports On Virtual Relationships
  You decide!!!
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Suggestions For Future Generations
    Go with it.  Virtual relationships are no different from real outer world ones.  Remember where you are and do not mix the two worlds together.  The last Advice I have is to not get addicted.  Being on the internet is fun but remeber that your body     also needs exercises.
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