RE: MUDs: Good? Bad? Both?

         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 on why she thinks MUD’s are a good thing, but overall I disagree with her because Multi User Domains are generally dangerous and overall have many negative affects.

Sherry Turkle explains that MUDs provide an alternate world where people can anonymously interact socially.  Turkle believes that this is a good thing because it is important that people can escape from their everyday lives.  She supports her argument with a solid 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 I argue this position by stating that too many people are moving too far away from reality and carrying out inappropriate and dangerous acts through their life in MUDs.

Personally, I have had a pretty weird experience with people who use a fake virtual personae.  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.  This is just a minor case is someone using a virtual persona.

Everyday, there are sexual predators using social networking websites, blogs, chat rooms, ect. to find and seduce children.  For me to agree with Turkle, people must be proactive to protect their privacy on the internet.  Parents must teach their kids to identify dangerous people on the net.  Let them know the internet is no different then real life and they aren’t allowed to talk to strangers.  Monitor what chat rooms and websites they engage in.  As Sherry Turkle states in “Aspects of the Self,” MUDs can positively affect our lives.  In reality, MUDs are a dangerous place for children and to experience MUDs in the positive ways that Turkle explains, it is necessary to take many precautions when engaging in MUDs.