Cybercultures. When I think of cybercultures I mainly think
of Second Life, Sims, and other worlds where people can be whoever they want to
be. That power to be able to choose what you look like and what you do can be
very addicting to users that live vicariously through these cyber worlds. These
cultures are now accessible within seconds at palm of our hands with our mobile
phones. Our cell phones are the terminals to the Internet and are the extension
to any cyberculture of our choice.
When I was younger I used to play the Sims game on my
computer all the time, so I can see the fun and addicting ways to become
enthralled in a world that is not considered reality. For most cyberculture
users today, however, their reality is in these chat rooms and worlds on the
Internet. Therefore, your personal reality can be wherever you make it and is
not clearly defined for all but individually defined.
A perfect example of people living multiple lives, thanks to
the Internet, is situation that occurred in my family a few years ago. My Aunt
began participating in a chat room that led her to forming a relationship with
a man who was not my Uncle. This went on for a few months and eventually she
decided to leave my Uncle and her four kids to move to Canada, where her new
cyber friend lives. She had never met this man before and left her family to
move to a different country to be with him. This just shows that people can
form strong relationships and different lives using the Internet and certain
cybercultures. Sometimes, in my Aunt’s case, these cyber lives and
relationships follow into their lives away from the Internet.
The biggest thing I took from reading chapter one from the
Nayer book is that technology is neither a cause nor effect of culture but is
both. It is combined, defined, and chosen by the culture that creates it.
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