I thought both articles we read this week were very interesting and relative to our generation. It’s the contrast between these different types of interaction via internet that fascinates me.
It seems like the relationships in these two examples are extremely different, and I wonder how you could define their degree of “reality” vs. “truthfulness.” The LambdaMoo relationships described by Dibbell have a certain intensity to them that I don’t think can be compared to MySpace or Facebook interactions. For instance, the fact that “virtual sex” can be fulfilling or that so-called “cyberrape” can be hurtful enough to move someone to (real-life) tears shows a high degree of vulnerability and emotional investment in these cyber relationships that I don’t think is as present in social networking situations. Personally, I couldn’t imagine someone feeling like they could be raped through Facebook; partially, perhaps, because it is so largely based on real-life connections that users do not have the same comfort level expressing things over the internet that they would not be comfortable expressing in reality, as they often would have to face the real-life consequences when they see the affected person again.
On the other hand, most Facebook relationships are based on actual interactions as well as cyber-interactions, which in my mind would make those relationships deeper. “Facebook friends” generally know each other’s voice, appearance, style of dress, social affect and relationships to others in addition to their profiles, whereas LambdaMoo users interact only through their cyber-selves. Do these different levels of knowing someone make Facebook relationships more true than LambdaMoo ones?
If we look at the concept of truth as Dibbell presents it, it is connected to vulnerability. Dibbell’s article, I think, shows that LambdaMoo users allow themselves to be very vulnerable within that setting. But what risks are they really taking in a world that they could technically disconnect themselves entirely from with the click of a mouse? Or simply start over with a new character and blank slate, just like Mr. Bungle? We don’t have that escape route within our workplace, or our school environment. So while our Facebook interactions may be less emotionally intense, I feel like they involve a similar degree of vulnerability simply because the stakes are higher in a world where we can’t start over. While Dibbell’s idea of the truth of the LambdaMoo world is very convincing, and I would agree that the interactions he describes are true in that they do truly affect us, I think it is still a very different kind of truth than that of the real world or those networking sites more directly bound to reality, simply because of the possibility of escape.

On a completely different note, one of the most interesting things to me about Boyd’s article, which Professor Chun also brought up in lecture and I hadn’t really thought about before is the concept of the public declaration of relationships that is a part of networking sites. In “real life” we are rarely confronted with the need to label our relationships, except perhaps with girlfriends/boyfriends. But how does it affect a relationship when it is labeled as “it’s complicated.” What does it mean to declare someone a “friend” or a “top-friend” and how does that affects real-life interactions? Also, why do we feel the need for this kind of public declaration which we do not seem to feel in other settings? These were just questions that I had never really asked myself before, and I thought would be interesting to discuss.