RESOURCE FILES

Chapter 6

Building Image: The Presentation of Self

Managing Impressions on the Internet

Over the past decade, the Internet has transformed social institutions as profoundly as the telephone, radio, and television did in previous eras. ¹ What is particularly interesting is its effect on the way people perceive and interact with others. When you're online, you can't check the other person's physical features, facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, clothing, biographical information, or any other interactional cues that aid in forming impressions. So you must rely on written words alone for information about the other person's trustworthiness. ²

In some ways, these limitations make electronic interactions more honest and straightforward. People often end up revealing far more about themselves than they would be inclined to do face to face. For instance, some people participating in chat rooms are more likely to express opinions, sometimes virulent opinions, about such things as race and politics, issues they might otherwise be reluctant to discuss with others. ³

In a university study, 3% of students who filled out a paper-and-pencil version of a survey admitted using illegal drugs at least once a week for recreational purposes. Of those who received the same survey via electronic mail, 14% made the same admission. ⁴

Internet discussion groups are particularly popular among gay men and lesbians, who feel that in such venues they can openly discuss issues of importance to the gay community or even "come out of the closet" without being condemned or harassed by neighbors and coworkers.⁵

Computer interaction can also eliminate or at least reduce the types of social inequalities that are often based on physical appearance. For instance, people with unappealing physical characteristics can communicate effectively over the Internet without immediately being judged by others. As one participant in an early computer conference system bluntly put it,

All messages have an equal chance because they all look alike. The only thing that sets them apart is their content. If you are a hunchback, a paraplegic, a woman, a black, fat, old, have two hundred warts on your face, or never take a bath, you still have the same chance. ⁶

Computer interaction also lets people lie about who they are. One person can create multiple identities, a man can claim to be a woman, a high school dropout can claim to be a senior citizen surviving on Social Security; "the plain can experience the self-presentation of great beauty; the nerdy can be elegant; the obese can be slender." ⁷

There has been a great deal of speculation in recent years on the implications of gender switching, the online practice of pretending to be someone of the opposite sex. One study surveyed 400 participants in online communities called MOOs (multiuser, object-oriented systems), which are populated by cartoon characters, called avatars, chosen by each participant as personal representations. The study found that 40% of MOO participants had engaged in some form of gender switching, but about half of them gave it up when it stopped being interesting and fun. ⁸

Such deception is not as easy as it may sound, however. Gender affects language patterns, perspective, and interpretations of experiences. A man may write, "I am a female," but using a "female voice" and providing convincing feminine responses to others' questions might be quite difficult for a man to do over time. ⁹

The same can be said for age. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for a 50-year-old to pass himself or herself off as a teenager on the Internet.

In fact, for the past several years the FBI has enlisted the help of three Maryland middle-school girls to teach agents the subtleties of teen culture—for example, never use proper grammar in instant messages, and use abbreviations like pos, which stands for "parents over shoulder"—so that the agents could go online and credibly pose as teenage girls. The girls have become an essential component of Operation Innocent Images, an initiative that seeks to stop people from peddling child pornography or sexually exploiting children on the Internet. ¹⁰

The medium itself also limits identity deception. For instance, although all identifying information can be stripped from a message so it can be sent anonymously or with a pseudonym, many user groups frown on or prohibit anonymous postings.

The domain name, which indicates the organization that provides the person's e-mail account, tells whether a person is writing from a university, a research lab, a private corporation, a government agency, or a commercial Internet service provider. This name may offer contextual information about the writer, such as educational status or occupation.

In addition, the idiosyncratic language style people use online—jargon, phrases, and abbreviations common to particular groups or communities—may either reinforce or negate a claimed identity.

Despite the potential problems arising from attempts to manipulate identity on the Internet, it offers the possibility of reducing differences between social groups by de-emphasizing information about race, eth­nicity, occupation, gender, disability, and other ascribed social statuses. We can only imagine what the social implications will be as ever-larger numbers of people around the world escape the physical, geographical, political, racial, and ethnic constraints that have always governed human interaction.

¹ Chapman, G. 1996. The Internet: Promise and peril in cyberspace. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia.

²Rheingold, H. 1994. The virtual community. New York: Harper Perennial.

³ Marriot, M. 1998, March 8. Internet unleashing a dialogue on race. New York Times.

⁴ Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S. 1991. Connections: New ways of working in the networked organization . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

⁵ Gay men and lesbians find a home on Internet services. 1996, June 16. New York Times .

⁶ Quoted in Zuboff, S. 1988. In the age of the smart machine, p. 371. New York: Basic Books.

⁷ Turkle, S. 1994. Constructions and reconstructions of self in virtual reality: Playing in the MUDs, p. 162. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 1, 158—167.

⁸ Cited in Headlam, B. 2000, May 25. Boys will be boys, and sometimes girls, in online communities. New York Times.

⁹ Donath, J. S. 1997. Identity deception in the virtual community. In P. Kollock & M. Smith (Eds.), Communities in cyberspace. Berkeley: University of California Press.

¹⁰ Ly, P. 2003, June 8. Teens teach FBI agents what's hot and who's cool. Indianapolis Star.