CMC

I have been trying to figure out how to best use this blog. This week I decided to put down my scattered thoughts as I was reading each article rather than reading everything and then writing a well digested version of the intermediate thoughts. So here it is.

Second Life

One point that struck me after I watched the CBC news report on Second Life was, that people were building there life and identity in second life so as to escape the problems and constraints of the real life. The avatars as the comentator said were slim and tall (“Slimmer, taller, better equipped versions of us”). Simon could dance in spite of his cerebral palsy. The writer (Tim??) commented that second life allows conquering death and taxes … a commentary on the need to run away from constraints, pain, frustrations of real life. The first thought I had was that they were all running away from reality and pretending something else while the reality actually did not change. If I can run away from painful reality so easily then I would never try to change it, improve it, or accept it. How can that be good for a person’s development as a human being.

I do not have much experience in second life but I wonder if the pretending remains just a fun thing for a short time like we pretended being a king or a brigand or mothers and fathers, when we used to play as kids. Or the virtual identity continues and makes a difference in the real life? Yet again what is ‘real life’ and what is real me. To quote from Indian philosophers ‘This world is Maya’, it is all perception.


CMC – impersonal, interpersonal, hyperpersonal

Among many interesting things in the article one is worth a mention as it relates to the earlier thought process about second life vs real life. When talking about hyperpersonal interaction (on page 28) Walther writes ‘why would people be attracted to such distortion?’ The use of word ‘distortion’ was very interesting. It was how I thought of second life … not reality, distortion. Yet when I think about CMC (except second life kind of virtual world) I feel it allows me to show my real self and avoids distortion. I am not sure why I still stick to the feeling of second life like virtual realities as undesirable running away from reality and CMC generated hyperpersonal communication as good and taking people closer to ‘my’ reality and avoiding distortion. Is this a difference of degree? Quality? Or it is different because of the objective of the participant? I am not sure right now. This definitely gives something to think about/ consciously question about as I participate in both worlds.

A few other things caught my attention.
Firstly, the research studies mentioned in the beginning of the article that looked at task vs social communication. The tone of the studies seemed like task communication is desirable and the social communication was not desirable. Thus CMS being less interpersonal is good for task communication/ getting work done. This view does not take into account the group dynamics theories and the theories of group formation/development (FtF) in organizational context. It is a very industrial view of looking at work and work relationships.
Secondly, I was very excited reading the SIDE model. I was thinking about the implications to client-vendor relations when each is on a different continent. I could very much relate to effects of perception of being a part of the group vs perception of as individual players. I was working with a vendor in India working for clients in US. Clients were always perceived as trouble makers. I am sure vendors were also perceived the same way from the other side. Then the organization positioned itself as a learning consultant rather than a vendor and I positioned my team as a consulting partner rather than an outside / third party vendor. Over the time, how we interacted with each other and how we made sense of what other was saying changed drastically. When I was reading Walther’s comments on SIDE it all makes a lot of sense.

About ‘Real’ me

I was once again thinking about the real me and the virtual me. When reading Bugeja’s thoughts, I wasn’t much thinking about the legal implications to administrators but of implications of violence, harassment etc in second life to me. In the past I would have said that I know it is not real so it wouldn’t bother me. But I know better now. I have observed how racist, threatening and sexually explicit replies to my comments on discussion groups and wikis disturbs me and leaves me shaken to the core. It is very puzzling that physically-removed online interactions affect the real me so much.

When I was reading research findings by Snyder etc (mentioned by Walther) it made me think again about what is ‘real me’. To quote from the article “….When a male believed he was speaking to an attractive partner, it affected his communication; his communication, in turn, affected the female partner’s engagement in the conversation, leading her to, in essence, become more beautiful.” So I am not only what I perceive I am, but I am what others perceive I am and also how I react to that perception and infinite iterations of this process.

I have been observing myself as I write this blog. It is quite interesting that after seeing no comments for any of my blogs and feeling quite comfortable about being alone, unwatched, what I write has changed. As I have a different personality (identity ???) when I am in India, in US, in class, office or home alone, I also have a different personality (identity ???) when I think I am writing for an audience or writing alone unwatched.