Introduction
Though there are people who have lived double lives in real life, most of us never had the dubious opportunity. It is dubious, because the ability to “live” multiple lives is now available in virtual reality. Virtual reality presents the opportunity for anyone with a computer to be whomever and whatever they want to be. This can be good for shut-ins and people who are severely limited in mobility or severely handicapped, but even for them, they need to be vigilant about separating fantasy from reality, at least part of the time. Aside from the many emotional and psychological problems that may ensue, and the possibility of addiction to something more exciting or controllable than real life, there is a further problem when the stated (or unstated) aim is to find a real life partner. Even if the two people involved do not grossly misrepresent themselves, people are maybe never themselves on line in a virtual reality setting. That would be like asking them to be themselves in a play. So expectations developed on line cannot be met in reality, and real life experiences may fall far short of those shared in virtual reality. Online relationships are an emotional minefield, best investigate with extreme care.
Main text
There was a young man of nearly thirty-odd in LA in the late nineties that wanted to be a successful musician and singer. He worked at it steadily and over several years he managed one or two little bits per year in movies or TV shows, just enough to finance the demos and studio time while he worked a regular job. He probably would never be successful in the way he dreamed, but the little successes kept him going and reasonably optimistic. It all stopped when he discovered chat rooms. He basked in the artificial glory and adoration of the “girls” in the rooms. He spent more and more time there. Within a few months he was spending all time outside of his job in chat, and he has still not come up for air. He basically lives in his computer and finances that life with a boring job.
The sad thing about the above scenario is that is it not uncommon. There are people who simply cannot interact away from the computer after a time. Some may even give up their jobs and move to cheap housing needing only some food and the computer Internet connection. They live on welfare after unemployment runs out. If they are single, like the man above, it is merely their choice of life style, however unhealthy. When they have spouses and children, others can be very hurt.
Virtual reality on line includes many areas: chat rooms, instant messaging, on site messaging and multi-user sites like games and simulations. MUDS (Multi-User Dungeons) and SIMS (Simulations) are very popular. Dating sites often include many of the functions of SIMS, as they make spending time on the site more exciting. Other sites and chat rooms allow users to post pictures, but they talk with text. There are simply dozens of different configurations. With the advent of very sophisticated avatars and virtual environments, dating sites are adding this capability in order to compete.
Problem areas in virtual reality settings stem from the nature of interpersonal relationships. How we know each other and even part of how we know ourselves is part of this paradigm. We project an image to others that we hope will convey the messages which we want to communicate. So, we may project self assurance to make others slow to approach or power to keep them at a greater distance. We can project friendliness to invite communication and even sexual interest to invite intimacy. Some of this is by choice in person, while some is unconscious. On line in virtual reality almost all of it is by choice, because we cannot be seen.
“Interpersonal communication is a transactional process in which humans negotiate the nature of their relationships with others. Through the back-and-forth exchange of interactive and interdependent behavioral messages, individuals create mental representations of themselves, others, and the relationship between them. Thus, interpersonal relationships reside in the minds of relational partners but are transacted through observable exchanges of behaviors” ( Cappella, 1987; Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967). (Biocca and Levy 278)
When face to face communication is absent, we are free to improve on the impression we project. Even over the telephone a certain amount of “fudge room” is there, because we are not seeing each other. In virtual reality, we can change that impression completely.
On MUDS (Multi-User Dungeons) and SIMS (Simulations) people can design themselves completely, including image, body language, talents and skills and voice. Most SIMS allow real time voice input, but this can be altered quite easily. So a 62-year-old fat bald man can be a 22-year-old athlete with a lion’s mane of hair or he can be a she or even an animal. Most of these take place on multi-user sites like Bounty Bay. World of Warcraft or Second Life. It was a logical extension of the old bulletin board type games. They get a lot of traffic, and many who were going to dating sites are now moving over to virtual reality, because it is much less embarrassing to play a game or take part in a huge “make your own play” than to go to a site dedicated to dating. So much of the online dating traffic has and is moving to VR sites.
Turkle (2008) says, “the Internet links millions of people in new spaces that are changing the way we think and the way we form our communities. That we are moving from ‘a modernist culture of calculation toward a postmodernist culture of simulation.’ That life on the screen permits us to “project ourselves into our own dramas, dramas in which we are producer, director, and star….” The transactional process on line, whether in text, using sound or by virtue of avatars is more like interacting by using puppets. In chat rooms and instant messaging it is more subtle. People represent themselves as they see fit, but all the gathered users interact directly. In VR sites, like Second Life, it is the puppets who interact. The puppeteers adopt the personality of the puppet and talking is about the puppet characters (avatars) and not about the persons moving the strings (in this case the mouse). So it becomes play-acting on a remote stage, rather like actors do to film animated characters.
“The defining features of interpersonal communication are:
- Interaction between humans.
- The formation of cognitive and emotional bonds.
- Interactive and interdependent negotiations of personal and interpersonal perceptions and cognitions.
- A process in which nonobservable cognitive and affective phenomena are linked to observable behavioral interactions.” (Biocca and Levy 278)
In view of the above, we will look at the interpersonal relationships which are possible on line, and the implications of the difference between what is projected and what is real. We can all understand what interaction between humans is. The formation of cognitive emotional bonds involves communication of some sense of how the participants feel about themselves, about their partners, and about the relationship between them ( Watzlawick et al., 1967). Interactive and interdependent negotiations of personal and interpersonal perceptions and cognitions. (Cappella, 1985; Leary, 1955; Palmer & Lack, 1994; Watzlawick et al., 1967). (Biocca and Levy 278)
This is the transactional portion of the communication, involving interaction, proposal and response etc. From this perspective, interpersonal relationships reside in the minds of relational partners and behaviors gain meaning when partners perceive, identify, and interpret those behaviors. Such interpretations or inferences provide mental models of the current state of the relationship that can be compared to desired goal states. (Biocca and Levy 280) In other words, we meet, one speaks and moves and the other considers and interprets the meaning and then responds. After sufficient interchange both parties have formed a mental image of the other and of how they relate to each other. Even their mental image themselves may change may change during this process in response to the interaction.
When the interchange and, in fact, the entire relationship takes place one level removed from reality (like the puppets), the cognitive impressions can have so many levels as to be totally confusing. “I think she likes me…er him..well us. Or is she pretending? Is she as nice as she seems? …” Both participants know the medium is proxied, so they react accordingly. Of course, the reaction may range from total acceptance to complete skepticism. The couple may even attempt to subvert this process by negotiating for a certain amount of truth, but then that can also be faked. This is the key, you have no way of knowing who or what is on the other end. “Not losing contact with reality requires continuing to integrate information critically, not using a pat “ideology” as basis for a “triage” of what you are willing to take seriously and what you choose to dismiss. No, contact with reality requires integration of data into the large context of one’s total reaching out to every kind of “other” that is “out there, ” with no evidence being shunned.”
Conclusion
The real import of all of this is that on line relationships are a mind-blowing proposition, and a very daring undertaking. If both parties are as real and truthful as possible, than something may actually work. However, every little misrepresentation will come back to haunt one if there is ever a meeting in real life. It is a terrible landscape to traverse. If you invest a great deal of your own emotional self in an online relationship, the destruction of the fantasy could be devastating. If you invest little, you stand to win nothing and to hurt the other person. Virtual reality relationships are not for the faint-hearted.
References
Biocca, Frank, and Mark R. Levy, eds. Communication in the Age of Virtual Reality. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995. Questia. Web.
Langan, Thomas. Surviving the Age of Virtual Reality. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2000. Questia. Web.
Turkle, Sherry, 2008, Who Am We?, Wired Magazine on line, Web.