Virtual intimacy

“Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.” – Homer Simpson.

Following on from our consideration of online dishonesty, we turn our attention to the other side of the equation; the suspension of disbelief that is required to make it possible to have a relationship in a virtual universe like SL.

There is some interesting research into the phenomenon of virtual intimacy, which shows that it is possible to develop a degree of romantic affinity using only computer-mediated interaction, though not so much as in face-to-face relationships. Unfortunately, little detail is given in the paper about exact type of online relationships that study participants had experienced, though reference is made to email communication via dating websites. It would seem reasonable to suppose that similar if not greater levels of intimacy could be experienced in a more realistic online environment like SL. A study carried out in SL suggested that real-world social norms mediated by quite subtle non-verbal communication may also be observed in virtual space, which lends weight to the theory that interaction in SL can replicate experience in real life.

Is intimacy in cyberspace really achievable though? Does true intimacy not imply some special understanding of the other person in the relationship? How is a belief in the possiblity of such insight compatible with the knowledge that many people online are dishonest about such basic aspects of their personality as gender or age?

To come to some understanding of this we need to recognise that there are different types of intimacy that may be sought online.

The most straightforward type is exemplified by users of web dating services. Here, the electronic portion of the courtship is, in most cases, just a means of reaching the true goal, that is a real-life relationship. A little creativity in their prospective partner’s profile may be acceptable, but lies that go much beyond moving a birthdate a few years forward or forgetting an ex-wife are likely to be found out, and prove fatal to the liason.

There is a separate population, however, for whom the online relationship is the objective itself, rather than a stepping stone to a real-world meeting. For these people the issue of dishonesty is much less critical. Indeed, having an untruthful partner may be may be positively advantageous. In such an affair the focus of affection is not a real person, but rather an internalised love-object. Too much honesty would be an unwelcome intrusion of reality; it might mark the blank screen upon which the lover wishes to project his or her fantasies.

There is obviously a lot more subtlety to the process than this crude outline, and there is of course a huge amount of psychoanalytical writing on the phenomenon as it occurs in therapy, and other real-life situations. My theory is that an environment like SL will be the ideal setting to study such interactions in an unusually pure form, which should be interesting.

Online dishonesty

While spending the last couple of days dealing with various things in my real life, or in meatspace as the vernacular would have it, I’ve been thinking about a couple of related but separate issues that relate to interaction in cyberspace, namely dishonesty and perceived intimacy.

I’m sure you won’t be shocked to learn that there is a lot of the former around; the last paper I read said that around 70% of net users report they’ve been lied to online at some point, while about 30% admit lying to others. Of course people aren’t always completely truthful when they talk to researchers either, so those figures should probably read 100% and 99%. What kind of mendacity is out there? The same as in real life; lies about age, occupation, marital status, but also about gender, which is harder to pull off in the flesh. Males and females were equally dishonest (or maybe all the women surveyed were really men). Why do people resort to deception? Parallels with meatspace again; to elevate their their status and attractiveness, and to guard their privacy. The biggest motivator however, was the desire to try out a new identity – this was particularly true for those who switched gender.

So far, so unsurprising. What good would a second life be if it was just the same as your first one? And is it really dishonest to try to be a different person in SL? Isn’t that person just the real you, your true self unencumbered by all the things (and people) that frustrate you in the real world?

It does raise the question though of how far it is possible to reinvent yourself online. People try to change their lives all the time, by moving city, or getting a new job, or a fresh relationship, or a new haircut. Some manage to pull it off, but most are disappointed, because the most important factor is what hasn’t changed, that is themselves. Conventional wisdom would say that to really transform yourself you need psychotherapy, (conventional wisdom among therapists that is, who can hardly be expected to say otherwise), but can an alternative reality like SL give people the opportunity to be someone else, even if it is only temporarily, or can it only ever be acting?

This raises some core issues about identity. Is it possible to act exactly like someone else when you are in SL, and thus actually become them, for all practical purposes? Or is there some part of your personality that will always show through the character you construct for yourself online?

Well, that’s what I’m hoping to find out, if I ever get it together enough to get in to SL. I plan to try to interview people when they are in character, then hope they will answer a few questions about their real life. Eventually I’d like to construct some sort of personality inventory to use online, one that would measure how well people can shift identity, and see if that correlates with any other personality traits.

It’s late at night, I’ll have to come back to the subject of perceived intimacy.