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Chapter 8: Cyberspace and Identity |
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Email has become so entrenched in our lives that it has become the common mode of communication in the workplace, and for some, it has become a lifeline to the world as well. Many of us can hardly imagine life without it. That email enhances as well as complicates our daily business is a given. But how it has begun to alter our sense of self is what will be explored in this chapter.
In "We've Got Mail—Always," Andrew Leonard discusses how email "saves time and wastes it, makes life simpler and more complicated, brings us together and pushes us apart." John Dyson's "Journey of an E-Mail" explains what happens when we hit the "Send" button on our email. And then the future implications of electronic communication is addressed in Fred Kaplan's "The End of History," which considers the temporary nature of much of our electronic communication and its impact on future scholarship. And Jennifer Lee, in "I Think, Therefore IM," considers how the increased use of instant messaging shorthand has influenced student writing. The focus on newer forms of electronic communication is continued as John C. Dvorak's "The Blog Phenomenon" and Michael Snider's "The Intimacy of Blogs" consider the Web Log.
Russ Parsons' "A Shared Sadness" offers another perspective on how electronic communication has helped foster news ways of relating to one another. In "Virtual Love," Meghan Daum, a freelance writer, describes her own experiences with what happens when two people who develop a passionate e-romance actually meet. In "Cyberspace and Identity," Sherry Turkle discusses how playing in cyberspace undermines the idea of a "core" self where multiple identities are the norm—a trend one sociologist finds psychologically healthy. Alex Pham's "Boy, You Fight Like a Girl" discusses how gender-switching is making online games not only challenging, but also confusing—and potentially embarrassing.
The chapter then concludes with Michael Lewis' "The 15-Year-Old Legal Whiz," which details the fascinating account of how a 15-year-old with no legal training posed as an expert attorney on a major online information site.
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