I took on the identity of a 13 year old male. When I entered the chat, some of the users asked me about my age, sex and location. I explained that I was from the east coast, but was careful not too divulge too much information about myself. I wanted to feel out the situation, and see how other people chatted with each other before jumping in and risking revealing my true identity (a 21 year old). The other users, on the other hand, were freely talking about school cliques, what they did for fun, and what their towns were like. Some of them found common ground with each other, and some could not relate. I finally joined in, saying that I play lots of sports. Some users said that they also played sports for their school teams, and some identified themselves as star athletes.
I was careful about the things I said; I had to go back to the mindset of a middle school student, and remember the things that were important to me back then. Because of CMC, the users were not able to actual see that I am actually a 21 year old female. Due to the lack of cues, such as my facial expressions and voice, I was able to pretend to be this younger person.
It's frightening how easy it was to deceive people. Before this class, I have never gone into a chat room with members other than people I actually know (e.g. AIM chats for group projects). I wonder how many people pretend to be completely different people, age and gender wise, online? Are individuals entertained by pretending to be people they are not?
COMMENTS:
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/media-selection-mrt-trumps-osullivan-in.html
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/09/occupations-cause-stereotypes.html
2 comments:
Emily,
The identity you took one was a rather tough one. It is easy to take on the identity of an older person because we obviously have an older mindset. But, choosing to be a younger person, and switching gender as well can be tough because that mindset it quite hard to get into. I don't even recall what middle school was like for me, let alone a girl. Obviously, as you said, CMC makes this much easier to accomplish, especially in a chatroom, because you can view the other conversations and get a grasp on the ideals of the others. But how did you describe yourself to the others? I was just wondering what self you might have tried to descibe to them. Did you describe yourself as the ideal "alpha male" of middle school, or the concientious nice guy?
~Will Douglas
Emily,
I also find it mind-boggling how people are so caught up in this chat room hype considering the vast amounts of anonymity. Especially considering that even young teens, like the one you were portraying, know that who they talk to online could be someone very much the opposite as to what they think. I do not have the facts but I would not be surprised if forty percent or more of people who frequent chat rooms change their identity; whether it is age, gender, both or other characteristics – the opportunities are endless.
I agree with Will, you did choose a hard subject to base your assignment on, but it seemed like you caught on to what others were saying in the chat room and formed your “ought self” for this role. I feel like you could have added more to your character and not have been so anonymous; for instance, make up traits about yourself and where you live, etc. I noticed later on you mentioned about liking sports, which I thought was good but I think more information is necessary to build up this character to make him seem more realistic.
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