The issues of identity performance and interpersonal communication have faced some interesting challenges in this new digital age. Technology has provided us with the means to become more, or at least different, than who we are or how we perform ourselves in “the real world.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that an “online persona” is a false representation of self, but rather that the removal of social obstructions (or even social shortcomings) releases the self of real-world inhibitions, especially in text-based interactions. But like the author Guy Merchant states, performed identities “vary considerably with the environment (email, discussion board, blog, or online game)…”
I have worked with people in the past that leave work and lose themselves for the rest of the night in MMORPGs (not the mostly non-existent acronym “MMPOLGs” that the author used) when they get home. They would, in a way, shed their real-world persona and become a character in a digital environment. While this wouldn’t fit with the author’s descriptions of “identity threat[s],” I do believe that those games can possibly threaten a person’s social identity. The irony is that while shutting one’s self out from social interactions in the “real-world,” the gamer simultaneously connects with people across the world, interacts directly with others within digital spaces, and at times can create long-lasting digital relationships.
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