IDENTITY AND BEHAVIOR
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SUMMARY
This paper takes issue with assertions that internet communications change cultural processes by changing the basis of social identity. It also provides alternate realities that displace the socially grounded ones of everyday synchronous discourse.
Internet is a new and unique medium of communication, it contains distinctive subcultures that lend themselves to postmodern speculation about its radical deconstructive effect on identity and on culture in general. Turkle said that we are moving from modernist calculation to post modern simulation, where self is a multiple, distributed system. I think that its true because internet has break through a number of boundaries which I will discuss later on.
There are some people in this paper that defines identity. Social interaction theorists have presented concepts of identity as a group of membership (Schegloff 1972). Gumperz in 1971 said it's a distinction between social group. Berreman in 1962 and 1972 said it s a class and caste to give only the briefest of references. Goffman (1959, 1971) in which interactants collaborate to facilitate the respective images of self that each party tacitly attempts to project. He calls this "face": not "self" but self-presentation. Social sciences involved definition of individual relationship to others.
The article also talkes about the "self as being," it defies both the definition and interpretation by being themselves. Internet provides people the opportunity to do what they want to do, which is to abandon the confines of a limiting self. Stone argues that more removed the self is from this locatable socially articulated self, the more freedom is available to generate interpretations that suit the participant. I agree with his notion because people tend to break through the boundaries that we have in the reality.
The article also talks about the reason of programming a self on the internet because it is ore anonymous, more people will take the option to participate in these marginalized roles. I think that this presumes a primacy of fantasy over practical motivations in large number of people.
Let me point out how the post modernism breaks through the boundaries of people: 1. Social and Technical Boundary. We need to compile with technology in order to have social interchane. Unlike what we are doing in reality, we just come out and talk to each other, technology doesn't exists. 2. Real and Virtual Boundary. Turkle said that the result of internet is a disappear of convention or reality from the world outside the computer into the virtual world expressed within the computer. 3. Public and Private Boundary. We view internet as public, but the illusion of privacy presents a boundary problem. This notion remain on the brain of the new users, but as long as you are on the internet, everything is public.
Two main underpinning premises of a radically different cyber culture are virtuality and anonymity. Virtuality implies that Internet is a space that is self-existent, not relying upon institutions, commercial interests, or conventions. It gives rise to the appearance of being a world on to itself, totally different from the everyday world. Anonymity is the notion of multiple identities operating freely in cyber space. But anonymity depends upon virtuality, and virtuality is just another construct to make money from business. I think both concepts depend upon forgetting these facts.
This article talks about cyberspace depends on real machines in real geography. There is an example of the illusion of anonymity in this article. They found out people within a company sent messages to newsgroup to promote their product. They are not true, people just made them up. I think it's just another method of business in internet.
The article finally examined some of the distinctive features of personal homepages for the way they uniquely illustrate the effort to pull together a cohesive presentation of self across social contexts in which individuals participate.
1. How does this article apply to you on the internet? (Dr. James)
The article told me that people are using internet more often because they want to experience Virtuality and Anonymity. Virtuality gives people a whole different world from what they are living in right now. Anonymity gives people different kinds of identity and roles. People may not accept their appearances all the times, they want to be slimmer, taller, smarter... internet gives them a immediate chance to change their identity completely. I have seen a lot of my friends on internet using different kinds of identity to meet new friends. I used these kind of things less often.
2. How do you define identity? (Cindy Hisley)
Identity is defined as the set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group. It is also known as the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity; individuality. In the article there are some people in this paper that defines identity. Social interaction theorists have presented concepts of identity as a group of membership. Gumperz said it's a distinction between social group. Berreman said it is a class and caste to give only the briefest of references. Goffman calls this "face": not "self" but self-presentation. Social sciences involved definition of individual relationship to others.
3. What is your reaction to the views expressed on the website? (Cindy Hisley)
I agree to some of the views in this article. The idea of how the post modernism breaks through the boundaries of people is ture. Internet have given people a new life style. Things people never think of and use before were applied on the internet. The things given by internet, virtuality and anonymity, allows people to have one or more whole different identities, and how they behave in different identities are not the same. I think internet have given people something that's not available before internet appeared.
4. What does it mean by "self as being"? ( Wai Chong, Pun)
Self as Being defies both definition and interpretation by beings themselves, because of its inevitably prior or "already-always" condition of being "thrown" or a product of its history and surrounding practices. Not only that, but because of the inherent elusiveness of a self-definition for Being, beings tend to focus all the more on constructed coherence, as opposed to attempting to evade it.
5. How important do you think that anonymity is online? (Juliet Baptista)
Internet provides people the opportunity to do what they have always wanted, which is to abandon the confines of a limiting self. The notion of anonymity give them a new idea of a separate personal identity for themselves. They can have a different personality. They also act differently on the internet. The problem is that some people use it as a tool to make money, as what I've told in the summary above, a guy use a name to deceive customers to buy their products. I think it either good and bad, depends on how you view them.
6. What is the internet? Is it a physical entity or something else? (Jayson Nakasone)
A set of computer networks that may be dissimilar and are joined together by means of gateways that handle data transfer and conversion of messages from the sending networks' protocols to those of the receiving network. It is just a place for people to interact with each other, not a physical entity. I think computer would learn according to what we have discussed in class, but I don't think internet can grow by itself. It still have to depend on people working on it in order to develop.
7. What do you mean by public and privacy boundary? (Marilyn Ortal)
This boundary must be renegotiated both in on-line text-based discourse and in the "advertisement for oneself" represented by the graphics-based home page with links to a network of topics the host feels comprise his on-line surroundings. We view Internet as public. But its illusion of privacy presents a boundary problem. For new users or users of entirely recreational domains, this illusion may obtain.
8. Do you think that it is healthy (psychologically) to change your identity when you're on the internet? (ie: change gender-roles, age etc.) (Newsham, Candra)
I think it is a behavior that they have an deficiency of themselves. Somebody may be not satisfy about their appearances, so they can have different roles on the net. Some people changed their gender-roles, age, for excitement. They are already bore about their current role and want to have a change in it. I think that everybody don't have a perfect appearances, but they have to accept them.
9. Does this site talk about negative behavior online that also extends into real life? (Shehla Korff)
The site didn't talk about negative behavior, the only thing I would say is Ms. Newsham's question about their psychological behavior on line. Why are they changing their gender, roles, and age online? They are not satisfy of what they are right now, and want to change when they are online.
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