Cyberculture: Society, Culture, and the Internet - Cyberpersonalities In Virtual Communities

CYBERPERSONALITIES IN VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

The anonymity afforded by the World Wide Web is another crucial element of cyberculture. Individuals routinely create screen names and, in some cases, online personalities that may or may not diverge from the ones they project in the physical world. Again, this feature could be either a blessing or a curse. On the one hand, the anonymity offers space for individuals who may feel ostracized or isolated to access information and take part in communities that may be practically off limits in the physical world. On the other hand, critics note that the anonymity simply fosters a culture of mischief in which individuals may indulge in social behaviors online that are unacceptable in the ordinary world, perhaps even illegal or subversive activities.

Paul Soriano of the Internet Society pointed out that "the virtual communities of the cyberworld will not cure the acute crisis of identity that the world is suffering." Despite the emergence of virtual communities and the anonymous nature of Internet communications, the myriad ethnic, religious, national, sexual, and ideological divisions of the world are unlikely to disappear as a result of cyberculture and internetworking. Rather, these online communities are likely to find their way into the broader cultural matrix as yet another strand in a complex social fabric.

Some commentators, such as David Holmes in his book Virtual Politics: Identity & Community in Cyberspace, warn that individuals run the risk of losing all sense of identity and community the more they are submerged in cyberspace, with its dissolution of time and space and excessive simulation of reality. Still others see little that is so completely revolutionary in the kind of transformations wrought by the Internet. Christopher Barnatt, for instance, writing in Human Relations, noted that "[a]cross human history, mental activities have invariably come to dominate and 'displace' activities of the body." Moreover, Barnatt argued, blaming the Internet for eroding traditional communities is somewhat akin to the blaming the automobile for eroding the community structures that preceded the rise of "suburban fantasylands accessible only to those with the technology of an automobile." Barnatt likened complaints about the Internet's effect on community to wanting "to protect one hyperreality from the encroachment of another that merely accelerates forward the same sociotechnical agenda."