Parallel Lives: Working on Identity in Virtual Space

• Published in: CONSTRUCTING THE SELF IN A MEDIATED WORLD pp. 156 - 176
• Main Author: Turkle, Sherry
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States SAGE Publications, Incorporated 1996; SAGE Publications, Inc
• Subjects: Boston, Massachusetts; Communication studies; Electronic Technology; Information Technology; Role Playing; Self Concept; Social Constructionism; Social Identity; Telecommunications; The self, ego, identity, personality; Treatment Methods
• ISBN: 0803970129; 9780803970120
• DOI: 10.4135/9781483327488.n10

Investigates the construction of personal identity on the Internet, drawing on interview & participant observation data from 200+ individuals in the Boston (MA) area who participate in multiuser dungeons (MUDs), games in which individuals adopt a character & specify its gender & other physical & psychological traits. This activity is taken to make possible the construction of a fluid & multiple identity that strains the very limits of the self. It is shown that, for many individuals, participation in MUDs becomes a sort of psychotherapy in which conscious & unconscious aspects of the self are revealed. For some of these individuals, difficult aspects of the self are simply acted out repeatedly in their MUD selves, thus trapping them in a vicious emotional cycle. However, for others, MUD space allows them to work through their difficulties & thus achieve a therapeutic advance in relation to their selves. Thus, it is concluded that MUDs are a context in which identity may be constructed & reconstructed through a process of play that, depending on the individual, may be more or less helpful in solving therapeutic disorders. 13 References. D. M. Smith