 clipped from en.wikipedia.org
|
2007年3月30日星期五
test post for clip_brainstorming
2007年3月18日星期日
Reflection for the 11th Week.
Articles Read:
Main Course pt.1
Wallace, P. (1999). Group dynamics in cyberspace. The psychology of the Internet (pp. 55-83). London: Cambridge University Press. [Read this eBook - MSU authorized users]
Main Course pt.2
Williams, D. (2007, in press). The impact of time online: Social capital and cyberbalkanization. CyberPsychology & Behavior.
Side order
Nie, N.H., & Hillygus, D.S. (2002). The impact of internet use on sociability: Time-diary findings. IT & Society 1(1),1-20. Available at http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/itandsociety/v01i01/v01i01a01.pdf
Summaries:
Wallace, P. (1999). pp.55-83
In this chapter, Wallace elaborates the ideas of belonging, loyalty, and commitment of group behavior. The discussion starts with observations of new groups formed through online forums departed easily in a short time. But there are evidences of "groupness" emerged among the huge number of forums and chatrooms online. Early on 1993, there were research showed the dynamic made participants bond together have something to do with information seeking, personal experience connection and community senses. Basically, the idea of group has the elements of a population of participation of participants and communicative activities through which participants influence each other. There are instinct difference in how participants of groups influence each other between face-to-face group and online group in which participants never meet each other face-to-face. the authors developed their discussion in a way of understanding the influence mechanism of real life group and then compareing with the online case.
Conformation has been observed in real world for group activities but drop dramatically in online group. According to Wallace, that is because individuals perceived they are equal in power and knowledge with other online partners. (Comments: As a result of physical absence, this may be one of the reasons that why people feel much sager and freer when they are online.) So, there are some essential difference in what the strength make the basic group norms work in online or offline context. Because the established channels, in face-to-face groups, to learn accepted behaviors by observing others or collecting nonverbal signs are not available in online context, participants have to apply different channels to learn conventions and customs while they are online. However, the different ways people learn conventions online are always connected with virtual habitats in real life. Instead of a whole new set of rules, the ways online are evolved from real life niches, developed from real life into online environment, a part of people's life, which, together with face-to-face life, makes a whole. The channels are mainly constructed with verbal cues and signs. In a more serious level, the online community has to be regulated by certain sub-groups for an orderly environment to maintain normal functions. When individuals are online as a group member, they show groups polarization tendency depending on whether the individuals feel like they are a part of the group.
The disappearance of geographical limitation make the possibilities of people's finding the groups of interest infinite.
Compared to open system group behavior dynamics, work groups dynamics also shows different patterns in face-to-face interaction and online interaction. It is important to understand the mechanism and to take the advantages of the effectiveness of virtual work groups. This is very important and practical for various organizations. According to Wallace's observation, online groups behave differently during discussion with a more skewed bias. Also, minority can express freer about their ideas in online discussion than those offline counterparts. Another major findings for workgroup meeting online is that the brainstorming activity practiced online is more effective for more ideas than face-to-face ones where individuals have to take turns to address their ideas and have their ideas-development be interrupted by others. (This could be very supportive for the group project.)
Williams, D. (2007, in press).
To understand in a more comprehensive way what online activities can impact on individuals' lives, especially online and off-line social capitals, and psychological profiles. To observe the outcome of social networks, Williams applied the concepts of "bridging" and "bonding" to observe the outcome of social networks: bridging--inclusive social capital, new resources of social network, little emotional support; applied to people with different backgrounds and weak relationships, inch deep mile wide. Bonding--exclusive social capital, strong emotional support; applied to people with less diverse backgrounds, and strong relationship. Closely connected with previous studies, the result provided a set of inter-correlated evidences. The study found significant correlation of bonding social capital with offline time and bridging social capital with online. What examined by Nie (summarized below) was supported. The other meaningful findings from this study were that internet encourages online social capital; offline, actually, had higher outgroup antagonism than online; women were more likely to lose their offline social capital if they spent more time online than men; higher level extroversion people shown much less possibilities of loneliness online while lower level extroversion people felt increasing loneliness.
Nie, N.H., & Hillygus, D.S. (2002).
This article focused on identifying possible impact of internet on sociability, specifically sociability based on face-to-face interactions. The authors started with the hypotheses that internet changed the allocation of individuals' time usage. The authors used a time-diary based survey in which participants responded with recall on six time blocks of "yesterday". The study was conducted with a large sample size n=6146 with a with age range from 18 to 64. The findings supported the hypothesis that more time online at home or during weekends had the cost of less time socializing with friends and families. Another hypothesis on efficiency, assuming internet may provide technology to make people engage more in social activities, was not supported by any findings.
Focus Question:
What do you see as *the* strong pull towards online socializing?
Well, it depends. It depends on what levels of socializing we are talking about, what is the participants' background, such as age, education, and even vocation, and what are the purposes or motivations of the individuals' being online. It is not just a result of some simple feature of the online environment. Among the tons of activities people can do online, such as shopping, distance learning, information searching (news, medical information, information for goods, academic articles...), entertaining (YouTube, online music...), or gaming, etc, socializing could be the only goal and activity some individuals are working on, or it could be a by-product from other online activity, such as gaming and entertaining. For both face-to-face and online socializing, the essence is people are meeting with others and seeking the sense of belongings as part of human needs. For some people, their motivation of online socializing could be just meet with others, as an extension of their face-to-face life. For some others, their online socializing is more motivated by their eagerness to meet with real person, most of the cases are strangers. I will develop my discussion for the case in which people only experience online socializing without meeting the real person, person from work, or strangers.
From my own experiences and readings of the course, I will argue there are three basic attractive factors possessed by online socializing. One is the infinite possibilities offered by online socializing through which individuals can develop their interests with like mind on a much freer level, a level that individuals can meet their groups of interests at anytime during the day, anywhere they travel, without fear of violating conventions created in face-to-face socializing. The second is that individuals are free from any commitment to any online socializing relationships or groups, which is not possible in face-to-face socializing. They are safer to develop their socializing experiences and free to connect or disconnect with any social groups online without hardness or embarrassment they may likely to face in face-to-face socialization because of the customs and conventions. The last one is that, while online, individuals are not facing the pressure of the socially constructed "self" in face-to-face environment, the fixed impression of who they are, what they are good at, what they are not good at......
My questions from the readings and questions for Discussion in class:
1. Even though William provided some background information about social capital, it is not clear enough to understand to concept. In different fields of sociology and business, the concept of social capital may vary. But it is necessary for us to discuss the understanding of social capital under the online socializing context.
Main Course pt.1
Wallace, P. (1999). Group dynamics in cyberspace. The psychology of the Internet (pp. 55-83). London: Cambridge University Press. [Read this eBook - MSU authorized users]
Main Course pt.2
Williams, D. (2007, in press). The impact of time online: Social capital and cyberbalkanization. CyberPsychology & Behavior.
Side order
Nie, N.H., & Hillygus, D.S. (2002). The impact of internet use on sociability: Time-diary findings. IT & Society 1(1),1-20. Available at http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/itandsociety/v01i01/v01i01a01.pdf
Summaries:
Wallace, P. (1999). pp.55-83
In this chapter, Wallace elaborates the ideas of belonging, loyalty, and commitment of group behavior. The discussion starts with observations of new groups formed through online forums departed easily in a short time. But there are evidences of "groupness" emerged among the huge number of forums and chatrooms online. Early on 1993, there were research showed the dynamic made participants bond together have something to do with information seeking, personal experience connection and community senses. Basically, the idea of group has the elements of a population of participation of participants and communicative activities through which participants influence each other. There are instinct difference in how participants of groups influence each other between face-to-face group and online group in which participants never meet each other face-to-face. the authors developed their discussion in a way of understanding the influence mechanism of real life group and then compareing with the online case.
Conformation has been observed in real world for group activities but drop dramatically in online group. According to Wallace, that is because individuals perceived they are equal in power and knowledge with other online partners. (Comments: As a result of physical absence, this may be one of the reasons that why people feel much sager and freer when they are online.) So, there are some essential difference in what the strength make the basic group norms work in online or offline context. Because the established channels, in face-to-face groups, to learn accepted behaviors by observing others or collecting nonverbal signs are not available in online context, participants have to apply different channels to learn conventions and customs while they are online. However, the different ways people learn conventions online are always connected with virtual habitats in real life. Instead of a whole new set of rules, the ways online are evolved from real life niches, developed from real life into online environment, a part of people's life, which, together with face-to-face life, makes a whole. The channels are mainly constructed with verbal cues and signs. In a more serious level, the online community has to be regulated by certain sub-groups for an orderly environment to maintain normal functions. When individuals are online as a group member, they show groups polarization tendency depending on whether the individuals feel like they are a part of the group.
The disappearance of geographical limitation make the possibilities of people's finding the groups of interest infinite.
Compared to open system group behavior dynamics, work groups dynamics also shows different patterns in face-to-face interaction and online interaction. It is important to understand the mechanism and to take the advantages of the effectiveness of virtual work groups. This is very important and practical for various organizations. According to Wallace's observation, online groups behave differently during discussion with a more skewed bias. Also, minority can express freer about their ideas in online discussion than those offline counterparts. Another major findings for workgroup meeting online is that the brainstorming activity practiced online is more effective for more ideas than face-to-face ones where individuals have to take turns to address their ideas and have their ideas-development be interrupted by others. (This could be very supportive for the group project.)
Williams, D. (2007, in press).
To understand in a more comprehensive way what online activities can impact on individuals' lives, especially online and off-line social capitals, and psychological profiles. To observe the outcome of social networks, Williams applied the concepts of "bridging" and "bonding" to observe the outcome of social networks: bridging--inclusive social capital, new resources of social network, little emotional support; applied to people with different backgrounds and weak relationships, inch deep mile wide. Bonding--exclusive social capital, strong emotional support; applied to people with less diverse backgrounds, and strong relationship. Closely connected with previous studies, the result provided a set of inter-correlated evidences. The study found significant correlation of bonding social capital with offline time and bridging social capital with online. What examined by Nie (summarized below) was supported. The other meaningful findings from this study were that internet encourages online social capital; offline, actually, had higher outgroup antagonism than online; women were more likely to lose their offline social capital if they spent more time online than men; higher level extroversion people shown much less possibilities of loneliness online while lower level extroversion people felt increasing loneliness.
Nie, N.H., & Hillygus, D.S. (2002).
This article focused on identifying possible impact of internet on sociability, specifically sociability based on face-to-face interactions. The authors started with the hypotheses that internet changed the allocation of individuals' time usage. The authors used a time-diary based survey in which participants responded with recall on six time blocks of "yesterday". The study was conducted with a large sample size n=6146 with a with age range from 18 to 64. The findings supported the hypothesis that more time online at home or during weekends had the cost of less time socializing with friends and families. Another hypothesis on efficiency, assuming internet may provide technology to make people engage more in social activities, was not supported by any findings.
Focus Question:
What do you see as *the* strong pull towards online socializing?
Well, it depends. It depends on what levels of socializing we are talking about, what is the participants' background, such as age, education, and even vocation, and what are the purposes or motivations of the individuals' being online. It is not just a result of some simple feature of the online environment. Among the tons of activities people can do online, such as shopping, distance learning, information searching (news, medical information, information for goods, academic articles...), entertaining (YouTube, online music...), or gaming, etc, socializing could be the only goal and activity some individuals are working on, or it could be a by-product from other online activity, such as gaming and entertaining. For both face-to-face and online socializing, the essence is people are meeting with others and seeking the sense of belongings as part of human needs. For some people, their motivation of online socializing could be just meet with others, as an extension of their face-to-face life. For some others, their online socializing is more motivated by their eagerness to meet with real person, most of the cases are strangers. I will develop my discussion for the case in which people only experience online socializing without meeting the real person, person from work, or strangers.
From my own experiences and readings of the course, I will argue there are three basic attractive factors possessed by online socializing. One is the infinite possibilities offered by online socializing through which individuals can develop their interests with like mind on a much freer level, a level that individuals can meet their groups of interests at anytime during the day, anywhere they travel, without fear of violating conventions created in face-to-face socializing. The second is that individuals are free from any commitment to any online socializing relationships or groups, which is not possible in face-to-face socializing. They are safer to develop their socializing experiences and free to connect or disconnect with any social groups online without hardness or embarrassment they may likely to face in face-to-face socialization because of the customs and conventions. The last one is that, while online, individuals are not facing the pressure of the socially constructed "self" in face-to-face environment, the fixed impression of who they are, what they are good at, what they are not good at......
My questions from the readings and questions for Discussion in class:
1. Even though William provided some background information about social capital, it is not clear enough to understand to concept. In different fields of sociology and business, the concept of social capital may vary. But it is necessary for us to discuss the understanding of social capital under the online socializing context.
2007年3月11日星期日
Reflection for the 10th Week.
Articles read
Turkle, S. (1995). Aspects of the self. Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet (pp. 177-209). New York: Simon & Schuster.
Turkle, S. (1995). TinySex and gender trouble. Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet (pp. 210-232). New York: Simon & Schuster.
Sherman, R. C., End, C., Krann, E., Cole, A., Campbell, J., Klausner, J., Birchmeier, Z. (2001). Metaperception in cyberspace. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 4(1), 123-129.
McDonough, J. P. (1999). Designers selves: Construction of technologically mediated identity within graphical, multiuser, virtual environments. Journal of American Society for Information Science, 50(10), 859-869.
Summaries
Focus Question
Take an issue in any of these readings and talk about how you have seen it play out in your second life experience (with others).
Not like MUDs where the users or players can only finish tasks or communicate within a small community, SL is a much more open system where users can build different objects following their own need or interests, create their own avatar more freely, and access different domains and meet a wide range of people as they travel through SL cyberspace. In this sense, SL is a playground where we can basically behave very similarly to our real life activity, of course the communication technology available on SL limits our behavior. The designers of SL work more like technique support than monopolize the space.
Another thought is that if an individual construct his/her identity or online persona in environment like SL, intensive online exercise is required. The individual has to be heavily involved. Otherwise, it is not likely one can really develop or try out different aspect of the self online. For the cases discussed in Turkle's book, all of them are intensive players. According to my current experience for a short period of time on SL compare with the online record in the cases in Turkle's book, I do not really have the sense of discovering certain aspect of myself. While I am on SL, I tend to apply my real life standard and behavior to communicate with others (actually strangers except for our classmates). Also, I do feel the gender mindset functioning when I approach to different avatars. But I am not skillful enough to tell the real gender after different avatars, not mentioning the avatars in none-human-shaped creatures.
My questions from the readings and questions for Discussion in class
1. McDonough is very strong in his statement that it is very important to study designers in order to understand thoroughly the identity within the CMC context. Could his research findings really help designers be aware of their situation and thus influence the CMC environment? To what extent and in what aspect understanding designers can help us understand CMC users' identity construction?
2. None of the articles for this week considers the technology competence and its influence on identity construction in cyberspace. It could be an important player deciding users attitudes, progress, and actual behavior in cyberspace. To understand online identity, what is the relationship between the level of technology competence and identity construction behavior?
Turkle, S. (1995). Aspects of the self. Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet (pp. 177-209). New York: Simon & Schuster.
Turkle, S. (1995). TinySex and gender trouble. Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet (pp. 210-232). New York: Simon & Schuster.
Sherman, R. C., End, C., Krann, E., Cole, A., Campbell, J., Klausner, J., Birchmeier, Z. (2001). Metaperception in cyberspace. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 4(1), 123-129.
McDonough, J. P. (1999). Designers selves: Construction of technologically mediated identity within graphical, multiuser, virtual environments. Journal of American Society for Information Science, 50(10), 859-869.
Summaries
Turkle, S. (1995). Turkle applied a large number of interview data and real life experiences of individuals to answer different questions of constructions and reconstructions of the self in virtual life and real life. She clearly directed her discussion with the idea that different virtual locations on the Internet provide explanations to different questions related to the construction of the self. Both of the chapters applied MUD to demonstrate the observation and develop the discussion.
Chapter 7. In this chapter, Turkle applied large amount of comparison discussion of real life and virtual life behavior and the psychological features of the self. Specifically, Turkle applied young adults dominantly for the cases to show her ideas of aspects of the self. Among the cases showed in this chapter, most of them are cases of college students whose development of the self is not completed and is heavily correlated with their experiences at younger ages. To Turkle, online environments like MUDs are parallel opportunities to individuals' real life. MUDs works like a laboratory for people to construct their identity. Just like people play in real life, people play on MUDs in a toy situation. On MUDs, the interactive text-based online environment, first impression management changes the way it works because of the disappearance of physical interaction. As a result, impression is formed by words exchanged on screen. MUDs enable individuals to practice different aspects of their identities online; and most of the practice is on psychological level. Turkle applied psychosocial moratorium to discuss that virtual environment can function to offer adolescent moratorium for young adult to develop their identities. However, knowing the self in more aspects does not really help individuals to solve psychological problems, not like psychotherapy does. Getting into good or bad in MUDs depends on the extent of healthy self. At the end of this chapter, Turkle skillfully directed back to real life case of her own as an example of identity shifting. This implicitly showed that the psychological experience we have online and the identity shifting experience between online and real life experience are not new to individuals. The virtual environment actually provides us a playground for a much larger scale of practice.
Chapter 8. This chapter discovered two other widely practiced actions on MUDs -- gender-swapping and virtual sex. Virtual cross-dressing is complicated because the mindset male or female forms in their real life is unconsciously applied. However, in MUDs environment, these gender roles, which are so ingrained that individuals ignore them naturally before, surface to be one of the biggest psychological awareness that have to be dealt with and worked through. Turkle Shakespeare's comedy characters Rosalind and Celia for further discussion of gender-swapping. The awareness of gender can be wakened by online activity or comedy. Also gender can be constructed intentionally by people in online activity or comedy. Closely related to gender, sex is another aspect of the self that has been practicing by individuals in virtual world. Turkle's discussion touched the fact that MUDs provide a stage where people with different age and gender would experience different psychological practice for different purposes. MUDs cannot change the psychological development stages of people. It is a self adaptive playground on which the activities can only be constructed through the interaction of the individuals and others in specific MUD communities. In addition, Turkle also raised the problem that players in MUDs mixed their real life with cyber life. At the end of the chapter, Turkle clearly described the present situations and attitude (Utopian, utilitarian, and apocalyptic) press holds towards the new way of life, the life influenced by virtual life. Turkle discussed with vision that the past history dominated by real-life-only communication cannot help modern people to understand thoroughly the phenomena and guide behavior in the new way of life. The new way of life is a complicated phenomena carrying all the social problems in real life. Just simple aspect or comment on good or bad of the life is not constructive to help us get through this silent revolution of way of life. We need to understand the challenge it brings and evolve actively with it.
Sherman, R. C. et. al. (2001). This article could be add to the collection of comparison of face-to-face and cyberspace communication. The article focused on the difference of face-to-face and text-based communication for impression management. As other article also mentioned, cyberspace communication applied limited techniques to generate impression: nickname, self-description, and paralinguistic cues. This study specifically focused on homepage communication. For this channel, different presentation pattern occurs. Not like face-to-face and text-based (dyadic meta-accuracy) communication, homepage has a one-way communication pattern (generalized meta-accuracy). This study investigated perception accuracy difference for face-to-face and homepage communication. The findings showed there was more discrepancy of homepage creators' assumption of the positive impression held by preceptors than it actually is, compared with face-to-face interaction. The authors discussed the possible reasons of the discrepancy by introducing "spotlight effect" and "illusion of transparency". In face-to-face interaction, these two biases could be easily adjusted because of the feedback mechanism in two-way communication. However, it is not likely in homepage which is a one-way communication channel. For the findings and the focus of an experimental study, this paper raise some good point for the field.
McDonough, J. P. (1999).This paper applied the focal point onto designers of computer-mediated-communication (CMC), on their effect of online social world and CMC participants' identities construction. The author began his discussion with social relationship of designers in the company, their power structure and communication. The author proposed a detailed analysis on designers' inscription of users. The research applied is a case based qualitative study. The author discussed that designers influence users' identity construction via designing environments consciously and unconsciously oriented by their own identities and social locations. More specifically generalized by the author, the designers are typical western culture dominated: white, male, and middle-class.
Chapter 7. In this chapter, Turkle applied large amount of comparison discussion of real life and virtual life behavior and the psychological features of the self. Specifically, Turkle applied young adults dominantly for the cases to show her ideas of aspects of the self. Among the cases showed in this chapter, most of them are cases of college students whose development of the self is not completed and is heavily correlated with their experiences at younger ages. To Turkle, online environments like MUDs are parallel opportunities to individuals' real life. MUDs works like a laboratory for people to construct their identity. Just like people play in real life, people play on MUDs in a toy situation. On MUDs, the interactive text-based online environment, first impression management changes the way it works because of the disappearance of physical interaction. As a result, impression is formed by words exchanged on screen. MUDs enable individuals to practice different aspects of their identities online; and most of the practice is on psychological level. Turkle applied psychosocial moratorium to discuss that virtual environment can function to offer adolescent moratorium for young adult to develop their identities. However, knowing the self in more aspects does not really help individuals to solve psychological problems, not like psychotherapy does. Getting into good or bad in MUDs depends on the extent of healthy self. At the end of this chapter, Turkle skillfully directed back to real life case of her own as an example of identity shifting. This implicitly showed that the psychological experience we have online and the identity shifting experience between online and real life experience are not new to individuals. The virtual environment actually provides us a playground for a much larger scale of practice.
Chapter 8. This chapter discovered two other widely practiced actions on MUDs -- gender-swapping and virtual sex. Virtual cross-dressing is complicated because the mindset male or female forms in their real life is unconsciously applied. However, in MUDs environment, these gender roles, which are so ingrained that individuals ignore them naturally before, surface to be one of the biggest psychological awareness that have to be dealt with and worked through. Turkle Shakespeare's comedy characters Rosalind and Celia for further discussion of gender-swapping. The awareness of gender can be wakened by online activity or comedy. Also gender can be constructed intentionally by people in online activity or comedy. Closely related to gender, sex is another aspect of the self that has been practicing by individuals in virtual world. Turkle's discussion touched the fact that MUDs provide a stage where people with different age and gender would experience different psychological practice for different purposes. MUDs cannot change the psychological development stages of people. It is a self adaptive playground on which the activities can only be constructed through the interaction of the individuals and others in specific MUD communities. In addition, Turkle also raised the problem that players in MUDs mixed their real life with cyber life. At the end of the chapter, Turkle clearly described the present situations and attitude (Utopian, utilitarian, and apocalyptic) press holds towards the new way of life, the life influenced by virtual life. Turkle discussed with vision that the past history dominated by real-life-only communication cannot help modern people to understand thoroughly the phenomena and guide behavior in the new way of life. The new way of life is a complicated phenomena carrying all the social problems in real life. Just simple aspect or comment on good or bad of the life is not constructive to help us get through this silent revolution of way of life. We need to understand the challenge it brings and evolve actively with it.
Sherman, R. C. et. al. (2001). This article could be add to the collection of comparison of face-to-face and cyberspace communication. The article focused on the difference of face-to-face and text-based communication for impression management. As other article also mentioned, cyberspace communication applied limited techniques to generate impression: nickname, self-description, and paralinguistic cues. This study specifically focused on homepage communication. For this channel, different presentation pattern occurs. Not like face-to-face and text-based (dyadic meta-accuracy) communication, homepage has a one-way communication pattern (generalized meta-accuracy). This study investigated perception accuracy difference for face-to-face and homepage communication. The findings showed there was more discrepancy of homepage creators' assumption of the positive impression held by preceptors than it actually is, compared with face-to-face interaction. The authors discussed the possible reasons of the discrepancy by introducing "spotlight effect" and "illusion of transparency". In face-to-face interaction, these two biases could be easily adjusted because of the feedback mechanism in two-way communication. However, it is not likely in homepage which is a one-way communication channel. For the findings and the focus of an experimental study, this paper raise some good point for the field.
McDonough, J. P. (1999).This paper applied the focal point onto designers of computer-mediated-communication (CMC), on their effect of online social world and CMC participants' identities construction. The author began his discussion with social relationship of designers in the company, their power structure and communication. The author proposed a detailed analysis on designers' inscription of users. The research applied is a case based qualitative study. The author discussed that designers influence users' identity construction via designing environments consciously and unconsciously oriented by their own identities and social locations. More specifically generalized by the author, the designers are typical western culture dominated: white, male, and middle-class.
Focus Question
Take an issue in any of these readings and talk about how you have seen it play out in your second life experience (with others).
Not like MUDs where the users or players can only finish tasks or communicate within a small community, SL is a much more open system where users can build different objects following their own need or interests, create their own avatar more freely, and access different domains and meet a wide range of people as they travel through SL cyberspace. In this sense, SL is a playground where we can basically behave very similarly to our real life activity, of course the communication technology available on SL limits our behavior. The designers of SL work more like technique support than monopolize the space.
Another thought is that if an individual construct his/her identity or online persona in environment like SL, intensive online exercise is required. The individual has to be heavily involved. Otherwise, it is not likely one can really develop or try out different aspect of the self online. For the cases discussed in Turkle's book, all of them are intensive players. According to my current experience for a short period of time on SL compare with the online record in the cases in Turkle's book, I do not really have the sense of discovering certain aspect of myself. While I am on SL, I tend to apply my real life standard and behavior to communicate with others (actually strangers except for our classmates). Also, I do feel the gender mindset functioning when I approach to different avatars. But I am not skillful enough to tell the real gender after different avatars, not mentioning the avatars in none-human-shaped creatures.
My questions from the readings and questions for Discussion in class
1. McDonough is very strong in his statement that it is very important to study designers in order to understand thoroughly the identity within the CMC context. Could his research findings really help designers be aware of their situation and thus influence the CMC environment? To what extent and in what aspect understanding designers can help us understand CMC users' identity construction?
2. None of the articles for this week considers the technology competence and its influence on identity construction in cyberspace. It could be an important player deciding users attitudes, progress, and actual behavior in cyberspace. To understand online identity, what is the relationship between the level of technology competence and identity construction behavior?
订阅：
博文 (Atom)