Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet

Chapter 9

The material below represents notes compiled by Robert Keel and Takako Nomi in their reading of Turkle's, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, Simon and Schuster, 1995.. They are intended for classroom use.

Virtuality and Its Discontents

The Notion Of A Community:

Changes from local bars to virtual cafe "The good place" -- a place for easy company, conversations, and a sense of belonging A place for individual social integration and community vitality.

• It used to be local bars, bistro, and coffee shop. However, such places have lost meanings as "the good place".
• Now can Dred's bar (on the Mud LambdaMoo) fill in the gap?

The culture of simulation : From Main street in a small town to Disney land and Shopping malls

• Re-creation and its standard as "real" --
• "Once Disney land's main street, USA, is the standard for artificial, Los Angeles' shopping malls seem authentic, even though, they, too are re-creations"
• Critical elements of the change -- Increases in utilitarian purposes and efficiency
• Shopping malls as recreations of a Main street -- A place planned to maximize purchasing rather than merely a public place; you are a consumer rather than merely a citizen; you are in a relatively controlled space (no places as a disarray);

Atomization of American life The rise of middle-class suburbs

• A community and neighborhood -- no longer a place where everyone knows your name.
• Anonymity and utilitarianism -- no one will know you, but you still can do what you need to do.
• Shopping for merchandise in catalogs or on television channels, shopping for companionship via personal ads.
• Virtuality of computers -- feels as natural as or more natural than TV?
• Overlapping life on and off screen -- less unconformable with identifying life-on-screen as "real"

Virtual reality and Physical reality

Effects of simulation The Disneyland effect -- to make denatured and artificial experiences seem real

• 'Real' cappuccino at a chain restaurant.
• Muds -- 'real' experiences "Nothing is written up. Muds are for rea l"The artificial crocodile effect" -- to make the fake seem more compelling than the real
• Devaluation of direct experiences
• Our ideas of what real and natural also depend on cultural materials available to us -- face-to-face conversation, letter, telephone, e-mail ... Another Effect -- a virtual experience may be so compelling that we believe that within it we've achieved more than we have.
• e.g. Gender swapping in Muds -- Do we really understand what is' like to be a person of the other gender?
• But, why must virtuality and real life compete? Can't we have both. If the answer is yes, then how can we get the best of both?

The Politics Of Virtuality: Virtual Reality -- Is it a psychological escape from real life, or is it political empowerment?

Muds as a vehicle of virtual social mobility

• Real Life -- economic insecurity for young people
• Muds Life -- possibilities to hold middle class status and meaningful work, safety and a space. Experiences in Muds -- self-fulfilling and intellectually challenging Muds politics -- more sense of participation and a middle-class peer group

Virtual Community: Community that exists in virtual world Computation as a resource for community building Political messages -- direct, immediate action and mobilization

Political concerns and possibilities regarding democracy

• Breakdown of class line
• Breakdown of race and class
• Creation of information elite, and maintained traditional underclass
• Permeability -- permeable border between the real and the virtual
• "Permeability is essential for the word "community" to be applied to our virtual social worlds. To make a community work, at least, some of the people [must] reach out through that screen and affect each other's lives"

Elements of a virtual community

• Something in common a new kind of social power -- undermining traditional forms of ownership and authority, traditional forms of organization and status.
• Sense of belonging -- connection between people
• Social controls -- censorship and self-surveillance (the notion of being seen by anonymous people)

Muds as objects-to-think-with about virtuality and accountability, provokes a new critical discourse about the real

The Question of Accountability: Is Mud rape only words? Virtual rape and virtual murder -- what are the effects on us, the effects on the self? The notion of the self -- fragmentation or segmentation?