Final English Paper: Questiosn fo Second-Lifers

Well, I've got my final english paper coming up, and I decided to bring this to my fellow Second Lifers, seeing as we're all a bunch of internet junkies ^_^

Here's the deal...I'm doing the paper on the anonymity of the internet, and how it effects people and their behavior.

As part of the paper, I've decided to interview online gamers and otherwise internet-junkies.

So the following is the list of questions - feel free to answer as many or as few as you like, and also to skip on parts of the questions you'd rather not answer. You can also answer them via PM to me if you'd rather not have it here in the thread.

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1) Have you noticed a significant difference in your internet persona from your real-life one? If so, what kind of difference?

2) Have you ever noticed significant differences in friends/families/acquaintances between their internet personas and real-life ones? If so, what differences?

3) Have you ever lied about yourself over the internet? If so, in what way? How did the situation develop? Why did you choose to lie?

4) Do you believe that the presence of open Player-vs.-Player combat has an effect on a persons behavior in an online game? Have you ever experienced this? If so, explain.

5) Do you believe community-oriented games have an effect on a persons behavior in-game? Have you ever experienced this? If so, explain.

6) Do you believe it would be better if the internet provided only some, or no anonymity at all? Explain why you feel this way.

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Sorry the questions look so much like an essay exam hehe...

Anywho, I'd appreciate it if I could get some people to answer these. Please feel free to add anything to your answers that the questions dont cover!

Thanks!

-Tristan

Greater Internet F**kwad Theory:

Normal Person + Anonymity = Total F**kwad.

One thing you will want to pay attention to as it sounds like it will be a word in your thesis is the difference between affect and effect. Affect is a verb whereas effect is a noun. Otherwise, interesting topic!

1) Have you noticed a significant difference in your internet persona from your real-life one? If so, what kind of difference? Yes, and in fact multiple avatars exacerbate this allowing for different facets of my personality to be developed. The difference is not that I am eliminating self from the personality expressed in-game (I do not think this is possible, really) but that I am focusing on different aspects and letting them run rampant without the system of checks and balances kicking in. As an English teacher, I may well wish to whip students for insurrection, for example (giggles) but I never would. However, as Domme Phoenix, I frequently whip willing participants who submit to my training. (wheee!)

2) Have you ever noticed significant differences in friends/families/acquaintances between their internet personas and real-life ones? If so, what differences? Yes. I notice that particularly when friends have first entered the game, they are often touchy and defensive because SL has a very high learning curve (though perhaps they would be in rl situations if they brought out a person's vulnerability in an extreme way). It isn't often in rl that we have to learn how to walk as adults, simultaneously with learning a dozen other tasks. (Well, not after age 3 anyway.) I have noticed friends who come over from other games with remarkably different paradigms having a great deal of difficulty dealing with anxiety, and this causes them, in my opinion, to sometimes be touchy or grasping. Generally, though, I find that people retain their core personalities to some extent and that certain situations or social dynamics allow them to explore facets more fully or roleplay in scenarios they would never indulge in real life (such as offering to do naughty extra credit for the English teacher, hee hee).

3) Have you ever lied about yourself over the internet? If so, in what way? How did the situation develop? Why did you choose to lie? Yes, only once. I wanted to see what it was like to have male privilege so I played a male avatar while claiming to be male for a day. I considered it no different at first than someone wanting to find out about white privilege and playing a different race. However, when a hetero female player seemed to have romantic interest in me, I quit playing this way as I worried that I might mislead and harm someone inadvertently.

4) Do you believe that the presence of open Player-vs.-Player combat has an effect on a persons behavior in an online game? Have you ever experienced this? If so, explain. Yes. I have seen two friends who did not know each other play with weapons at each other until one paralyzed the other in game. The one who was paralyzed never came back to SL because he felt the other friend was overly aggressive. I think in rl the friend who paralyzed the other has passive aggressive tendencies, but is not generally so overtly aggressive as to paralyze someone who has merely shot snowballs at him.

5) Do you believe community-oriented games have an effect on a persons behavior in-game? Have you ever experienced this? If so, explain. I think that community oriented games bring about valuable social opportunities for people with similar interests who might otherwise not connect. I have seen that working models for dealing with stress change in community oriented games. Instead of a Fight or Flight response, I witness more of a Tend and Befriend response. In other words, I have noticed more cooperative versus competitive problem solving in community oriented games, with SL being the pinnacle of that.

6) Do you believe it would be better if the internet provided only some, or no anonymity at all? Explain why you feel this way. I would like to see the internet provide less anonymity only in the instance of allowing people to discern minors from adults. In another game, I have been propositioned for cyber from someone posing as an adult who later turned out to be a minor (and this is too creepy for words). Additionally, in the same (not second life) game, I had a virtual daughter who contacted me one day to say she was engaged to be married in game. This concerned me when I found out that she was intending to virtually wed a 22 year old because she was only 13. When I contacted him to inform him of her age, he was shocked and immediately withdrew from the agreement. My virtual daughter was quite put off that I interfered, but after I talked with her at length about predators on the net, she at least understood that my intention was to protect her. Nonetheless that was the last I heard from her.

Good Luck with the Paper!!! ~~ Perse

1) There is a significant difference between my real life, and my internet life. Normally I am the shy type, never talking to people, an all around quite guy. However, online, I am somewhat 'out going', I speak my mind, I talk to everyone, I am open about everything.

2) I normally stick to the other quite-ish people, those who act just like me, in real life. Online, however, I am friends with everyone. It doesn't bother me what they are like, if they are good people and I can get along with them, I consider them friends.

3) *Looks around innocently and skips the question.*

4) One word, YES! When a game allows open PvP, it draws the "bad" out of people. I playied a MMORPG called "Dransik" [Now known as "Ashen Empires"]. In that game, I met people who were like saints while playing, never did anything wrong, always helped people. Then one day, open PvP was added, and as soon as that happened, those friends started killing other players, not caring at all. They stole from players, made fun of them, everything. Open PvP turned them from Saints, to little devils.

5) Not truely sure about this one. *Skips.*

6) *Points up at answer 5 and skips.*


Hope it helped!

1) As far as Adam Cooper & myself go, we are very much the same, save I am shyer in RL a lot more than I am in SL.

2) Ummm not really. Those I have met in the real world are very close to there online selves, but seeing as I have not met many I really cannot say if this the norm or not.

3) Well in Jedi Academy I did sometimes lie about how some "skins" looked as I knew saying the truth would have crushed them and would have resulted in them not making anymore skins, hence improving there skills. Sometimes its not a matter of choosing between right or wrong, but choosing between the lesser of two evils..........

4) Perhaps. I have played LOTS of PvP games (like Halo) and have discovered that if someone finds that they are good at combat (or even bad at combat ) they can become very obsesed indeed. I remember the first time I played "capture the flag" in a game. I absolutly LOVED it (and still do) and was completly obsessed with it for 3 weeks; till my wife smacked me upside the head and "captured MY flag". Boy I canged my tune quickly... Hohoho

5) Yes absolutly. In the best case, it can make the person more socially active. In the worse case, it can make them less so inclined. SL is a community of sorts (a loose one) and it has much to teach us. weather we learn wisely or not is another question entirily.....

6) Please define 'anonymity' in regards to SL.... In a way we are all anonomus as people only know anything about us if we tell them. The internet is a tool and a masive resource of information, but we all live in the real world and bottom line, none of us are invisible in it so to me its sort of a moot point. Also I truly beleave we are all responable for not only what we do in life but also what we don't do........


"It's not just what we say, its how we say it which can leave the deepest scar's." - Dear Abby

I am this theory in action.