how honest are you, online

[Princess Ivy]

when i first started posting in forums, i had a lot of baggage, and asked this sort of thing to try to work out my own issues. i'm over it, but the questions are still interesting, although now from a sociolgical point of view. The internet is so fluid, and easily manipulated. it can be pure complete and utter fantasy. and so, how does this impact on the people posting, making friends, and in some cases falling in love. how real can it be? what are the effects on other people? do we believe anyone? do we lie? what are the structures of this very new international community? i mean generaly. Please don't answer if you feel uncomfortable, but i am genuinely fascinated to know, and am hoping to incorporate some of this information into my own studies.
1. i am very honest here, and on chronicles network and most places i visit (not many), however there is one site that i love to spam. its a bad habbit, and i haven't done it for a long time, but its adictive. the people there are such dunderheads.
2. i only have two identities online, my forum identity - princess ivy, and my e-mail/work identity. (except when i spam)
3. i tend to get very paranoid about people online, it takes me a while to trust them and accept that they are who they say they are. past bitter experience.
4. i've made friends online, i believe.
5. i've made enemies online, however, i sometimes worry that they will track me down and try to fool me by taking on a new identity
6. i find it a lot easier to tell people to leave me alone, online
7. although i'm a bit paranoid, i will accept people, after a time.
8. i do talk to people by im, but never by web cam. that is simply because i cannot think of any reason anyone would want to look at me typing.
9. i've never fallen for anyone online, and don't think, that at this stage, i would be able to without physically meeting that person (i am not looking right now)
10. i enjoy being part of an online community, but i don't treat it as real life. sometimes it does get to me as real.

[Alexa]

I prefer to keep my mouth shut than to say a lie. Definetely not a good thing on the net and with my supervisor.

I have another identity on a forum I haven't visited for months.

I need some time to accept people, too. I suppose this is one of the life's lessons.

I believe I made myself some friends on the net, too. At least, at a level the net can give you some ideas about the person behind the screen. I follow my 6th instinct.

I have no enemies I'm aware of.

No im or webcam.

Not a place to fall in love with somebody. I need to look into the eyes of the person.

Paranoia ? Well, I used to be when a person used to post only after one of my posts responding for other persons. I realised lately she was only trying to find a friend.

I enjoy being connected on line with people from all over the world. It makes me feel better being aware I cannot visit all the planet. The net is another dimension of reality.

I hope this can help you into your studies, Princess. :smilie:

[Princess Ivy]

its an interest right now, something i find fascinating. i'm hoping to incorporate it into my studies as i progress however. this was sugested to me by a friend who is a psycologist, as an interesting new line in society.

[Winters_Sorrow]

Well I usually try & be as honest as possible online (too lazy to remember all the lies).

I don't deny to probably being more flamboyant online than in real life though - there is an anonimity in online forums which allows people to 'get away' with more than they world if they said it face to face.
To be honest up until Feb this year (when I bumped into Chronicles) I was never a fan of online foums for precisely the reasons you've stated, in that it's hard to believe what people claim to be online. However its nice to be part of a community of people who share the same tastes or variations thereof.
I agree with Alexa in that online forums are a great way to interact with people from all over the world who have different views. Who knows, sites like these may encourage more people to see 'foreigners' as real people and not the stereotypical figures each nation has of it's neighbours, and that can't be a bad thing.

It'd be nice to make friends from these sorts of places but I agree it's not always easy to lower your guard. The perversity of the written word is that you can't tell the tone or facial expressions of these conversations and that's when you realise how much you rely on those signals in real life!

I don't get paranoid about sharing details online (although I admit to vagueness when I can), but then again I haven't had any bad experiences yet!

[Leto]

Usually honest, but I don't disclose info as easily as IRL. Hence my shyness to share pictures and what I consider as personal details.
Did I made friends over the Net ? Yes, as I would have done IRL. Even met (never alone) or chat on the phone with some.
Use Instant messaging (easier to chat with co-worker without supervisor overhearing) but no webcam. Did I mention my shyness around pictures ?
Went through several boards before CN and Freecafe, and usually end being a mod. But it's a real pain to do moderation duty and have fun in the same time on a comic board. Have a good talent to sniff trolls or potential problem posters from the first post.
Did I made enemy over the net ? Yep, 2 banned trolls. But got rid of them, now no problem.
Paranoia ? An healthy level of it, as with any stranger I don't know.
How many ID on the web. Except my professional one, which is my real one, 2. Mainly because one username is taken, the other is free. And one different for WoW.
Never fall in love on the net. Kind of stupid IMO to fell in love with someone else word only. I need to met the person, see him, hear him before...

More questions ?

[littlemissattitude]

Originally Posted by Princess Ivy

when i first started posting in forums, i had a lot of baggage, and asked this sort of thing to try to work out my own issues. i'm over it, but the questions are still interesting, although now from a sociolgical point of view. The internet is so fluid, and easily manipulated. it can be pure complete and utter fantasy. and so, how does this impact on the people posting, making friends, and in some cases falling in love. how real can it be? what are the effects on other people? do we believe anyone? do we lie? what are the structures of this very new international community? i mean generaly. Please don't answer if you feel uncomfortable, but i am genuinely fascinated to know, and am hoping to incorporate some of this information into my own studies.
1. i am very honest here, and on chronicles network and most places i visit (not many), however there is one site that i love to spam. its a bad habbit, and i haven't done it for a long time, but its adictive. the people there are such dunderheads.
2. i only have two identities online, my forum identity - princess ivy, and my e-mail/work identity. (except when i spam)
3. i tend to get very paranoid about people online, it takes me a while to trust them and accept that they are who they say they are. past bitter experience.
4. i've made friends online, i believe.
5. i've made enemies online, however, i sometimes worry that they will track me down and try to fool me by taking on a new identity
6. i find it a lot easier to tell people to leave me alone, online
7. although i'm a bit paranoid, i will accept people, after a time.
8. i do talk to people by im, but never by web cam. that is simply because i cannot think of any reason anyone would want to look at me typing.
9. i've never fallen for anyone online, and don't think, that at this stage, i would be able to without physically meeting that person (i am not looking right now)
10. i enjoy being part of an online community, but i don't treat it as real life. sometimes it does get to me as real.

Let me put it this way about honesty...I won't post in forums where I can't be honest about myself. I will omit personal details sometimes, but I do not make things up. Like someone said, it isn't worth all the effort to keep up with things that are made-up.

I registered a second identity on Chronicles (fiona), but only because I was having to use a public computer for awhile and I wasn't sure about their security so I used that one only there, and don't use it any more. Also, there is one forum I post on where I use a different screen name because it is a recovery site from the religion I used to belong to and I prefer not to let any personal details at all out there, as it could get into the wrong hands, i.e., people who would contact me to try to get me to return to the church, which I will not do. And I have a different sign-in for Yahoo, but that's only because I couldn't get littlemissattitude there, as it was already taken.

I tend to take everything people say on forums with a grain of salt until I get to know them, because people do lie sometimes. However, I'm the same way about that in real life...I tend not to believe half of what people say until they give me a reason to believe them. Probably paranoia on my part, but it has stood me in good stead.

I think I've made friends online...especially at Chronicles and, by extension, over here.

I don't think I've made any enemies. I hope I haven't. Although I got into a pretty heated "discussion" with someone on another forum I frequent in the past couple of days, and I don't think she approves of me very much. I hope that doesn't make me an enemy.

I've never been very enthusiastic about the online romance thing, although I know people who have met and married that way. I prefer to keep things friendly. It's less complicated.

I do think of the people I meet online as real, and consider my online life part of my reality. Part of that is because I don't get out that much. I take care of my elderly mother. She has trouble getting around so we don't go out much, and she has short-term memory issues so that I can't leave her alone for very long at a time. Consequently, these forums are probably a larger part of my social life right now than they really should be. But there for awhile, when my mother's health began to not be so good, being able to go online and chat with people probably saved my sanity. It still does occasionally.

These are really good questions, Ivy. I think there are issues here than anyone who spends very much time in forums like this should ask themselves. :smilie:

[Princess Ivy]

thank you, my first module is 'understanding social change' and i would assume it will cover more an general overview of societal change and how it is applicable in the field of scoiology. i don't know if i will be able to look at things independantly at this stage, however, i will in future modules, and i believe that the internet is the biggest change in society since the reformation. it is indeed an entirley new society, governed by its own rules, and yet, paradoxically, while it is driven by pure fantasy, it is also part of our modern reality. i think it will be fascinating to study, and i'm getting ideas down and asking question with the view to using them later on :wink:

[Alexa]

A society without limit at the border of a country. The only limit is the language for those who don't know other languages. There is another barrier on specialised forums: the knowledge.

And let's not forget "the lost souls", the banned one.

Interesting choice, Princess. :smilie:

[littlemissattitude]

That sounds fascinating, Ivy. Being an anthropologist by education myself, and belieiving that anthropology and sociology are just slightly different approaches to the same material and complement rather than contradict each other, I'll be very interested in the conclusions you come up with.

My own view of the internet is that despite the abuses that it can be subject to, it is on the whole a positive thing because it makes it possible for people from all over to talk to each other without any intermediary other than the actual technology that make it possible. I think that the only way we are all (as a species) going to get over artificial divisions and start to understand each other and get along is to talk to each other. And we're going to have to start getting along pretty darn soon or things are going to get even worse than they are now, politically speaking.

And on that philosophical note (my goodness, this early in the morning, too), I need to go away and have breakfast so I can get to work. :smilie: Good luck on your studies, Ivy, and please, keep us posted.

[Princess Ivy]

to add to that, the open university, where i'm studying, doesn't offer anthropology. I originaly wanted to study that, they advised that the way to work around it, would be to obtain a degree in sociology with modules from history and (believe it or not) ecconomics. That was before everything went to hell in a handbasket and i became more interested in specific, person psycology and modern sociology leading to those problems.