While I was reading through Sherry Turkle’s, “Aspects of Life”, many questions sifted in and out of my head. I would continue to read on to find that almost all of them would be answered in the next few paragraphs, but there is still one question I have that is up for debate: Are MUD’s and virtual persona’s more of a positive or negative aspect of our society? Turkle gives some clear examples of why MUD’s are a good thing, but there are also some obvious reasons why they could be considered negative.
In my opinion, Turkle’s best example of shining a positive light on MUD’s is that of Gordon the software designer. He uses multiple virtual persona’s in MUD’s to help him socialize easier and he even admitted that he started to adopt certain traits of his characters. MUD’s are definitely positive when people use them to experiment different characteristics in a social world without having any major consequences, such as Gordon did. But where is the line crossed?
Personally, I have had a pretty weird experience with fake virtual personae’s. In high school, I accepted a friend request from a girl I didn’t know (that was my first mistake) that claimed she went to my school. For a couple weeks she wouldn’t stop messaging me and a couple of my friends, so I decided to delete her. It turns out “she” was some guy that was two years older than me and actually went to my high school. He was later caught sending nude pictures of himself to a couple of people that I know using that same facebook account.
After this past week using our AIM accounts, I realized just how easy it is to manipulate somebody to believe you aren’t over the internet. A lot of the time is can be used for fun, like it was during this project. But during the project we knew that we were talking to a made up character. That always isn’t the case in the real world. There are perverted grown men manipulating children over the internet to fulfill their messed up fantasies and I’m not so sure to whether the positive in MUD’s makes up for the negatives.
I think your blog had a very good start, but was not very detailed. Going deeper into the men being perverts part would have made your argument stronger. Also, be more clear in the future on what side you take. You had a very good personal connection, but you were not exactly clear on what side you are on when it came to MUDs. Overall, a good start, but by explaining more in depth your points it can really make your blogs very strong.
ReplyDeleteI wish you would have went into some greater detail about your experiences because I think you are on the right track for sure. I liked the way you incorporated your own personal story to relate your argument. Using this tool will definitely strengthen your argument and you should continue to do that. It was a good start, and I look forward to you expanded these posts.
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