I found an article online about how the game Second Life is threatening a couple’s marriage. Ric Hoogerstraat (age 53) is married to Sue Hoogerstraat in real life. But in Second Life Ric, who controls the avatar Dutch Hoorenbeek (age 25), is married to the avatar Tenaj Jackalope-Hoorenbeek. Tenaj is controlled by Janet Spielman (age 38). Ric spends all of his spare time as Dutch, managing his virtual strip club and going on virtual motorcycle rides with Tenaj. Ric has never met Janet in person and they have no plans to do so in the future. They simply chat through instant message and interact through their avatars. Sue feels as if she has been widowed. Ric is barely aware of his actual physical surroundings, including his real wife Sue. Ric and Sue met a couple years earlier on an online chat room and eventually met and got married. They both connected on the fact that they were divorced and had two adult children (common ground). Sue’s children are pushing Sue to divorce Ric, but Sue is not ready to leave him yet.
This type of digital deception mainly involves identity based deception. Ric is really 58 years old, but he pretends to be 25 in Second Life. This type of deception is an assessment signal. Assessment signals are typically difficult to change, but the reduced cues online facilitates alteration of assessment signals. However, it is interesting to note that Ric did not commit complete identity based deception. For example, Ric changed his age and his first name, but Ric did not change his physical appearance much. Dutch looks like a younger version of Ric. Also, Ric changed his last name from Hoogerstraat to Hoorenbeek, which is not a drastic change. Similarly, Janet changed her name to Tenaj, which is Janet spelled backwards. Thus, although some identity based assessment signals were altered, drastic changes were not made. Deception was used to ensure anonymity, and not to deceive or manipulate. Conventional signals were also used by Ric who made his avatar wear leather jackets and ride a Harley in order to portray a young, hip guy. A major appeal to Second Life is that you have total control and are able to manipulate and engage in self-presentational tactics, since you are not FtF.
I don’t think that Second Life in this case was used to deceive or manipulate anyone. Rather, Ric and Janet have a very close relatively honest relationship. They are involved on a social and emotional level. When Ric needed real life surgery, Tenaj tried to make Dutch feel better. When something bad happens in Second Life, Ric will be upset; and when something positive occurs, he is happy in real life. Ric and Janet, along with their other avatar friends have developed a strong bond, even though their real names and ages are not known. Janet states that there is a “huge trust” between them and that they “tell each other everything.” Dutch and Tenaj met at the virtual mall, where Dutch has some business ventures. Thus, their proximity and the physical attraction between their avatars led them to form a relationship. Further, Dutch and Tenaj share a liking for dogs (common ground), which led to further attraction. They currently own three dogs together. Also, the anonymity of Second Life, no doubt leads to disinhibition effects which causes an increase in self-disclosure and an intensification of feelings.
article: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118670164592393622.html
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3 comments:
Hey Dina, this was a very interesting post. I think it is interesting how people can lead such double lives, in real life and through the internet. I'm torn when I think about if Ric is technically cheating on his wife. There is no physical cheating, but is there such a thing as emotional cheating? I'm sure his wife thinks so. I'm sure cases like this raise debates and arguements everywhere.
Hey Dina! This is the first time I am really hearing about and understanding what happens in Second Life and I find it to be very interesting and yet a little bit disturbing. It seems as though the Second Life fulfills some of what they are missing in real life and portrays who they really want to be but as the other comment says, is this a form of cheating? I also noticed that these people have complete interactional control, allowing them to selectively present themselves in the manner that they choose. There is also a removal of gating features because the people cannot actually see the truth in eachother and therefore have no basis to close or open gates when making decisions. Thanks for letting me know more about Second Life!
Hi Dina,
This was quite an interesting case you observed. In my opinion, it seems as if the anonymity created in the online space of the virtual world made the digital deception somewhat more acceptable. The purpose of the game was in fact to "pretend" you are this avatar, so it must have been expected that a deceptive quality would surface sometime. It's interesting how you pointed out that the emotions and realities from both spaces were one and the same at a certain point, which only led to further self-disclosures that fueled interests. Although the two never met, the fact that his emotions in the game and out of it were interchangeable caused me to believe that this issue was truly a case of infidelity on the husband's part.
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