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.