MUDs: New Technology or Avoiding the Real World?

We have been reading several articles dealing with how our identity fits into the whole network culture idea. The first was a chapter titled “Identity Crisis” from Sherry Turkle’s book Life On the Screen. It was about how many people now go online into internet communities, and create alternate personalities and identities. The second was from the introduction of Andy Clark’s book, Natural Born Cyborgs, which looked at how humans rely on technology and, how we are basically merging our minds with technology. We also looked at this website, which shows the work of STELARC, an “artist” that creates machine parts to put on his body.

In class, we began to explore the concerns that exist with our increasing dependence on technology. The Matrix is definitely an extreme example of what could go wrong, but I think that the STELARC guy shows how there is a fine line between using technology to create something new and exciting, and becoming too obsessed to the point that threatens one’s safety.

We also talked about how technology can potentially cause us to lose control or lose our sense of self and identity. We looked at the story from “Identity Crisis” about a woman that lost her leg and could not face the real world until she saw how people reacted to her in a MUD. I had never heard of a MUD before, but I think they are kind of like The SIMS, which my friends and I were obsessed with in middle school, only you can interact with other users. At first, I thought that it was kind of sad that the woman needed to use the MUD to find out how to live in the real world. I always thought that you should never use the internet to try to replace what is actually going on around you. But the more I thought about it, I began to think that the MUD just acted as a resource to the woman to get help. Rather than going to a support group for people with disabilities, she found support through the people in her MUD, which ultimately helped heal her.

I think that my initial reaction was probably normal considering that MUDs are a newer technology. I remember with I first started using instant messenger, my parents often criticized how impersonal it was, and how it would be much better to get together with my friends and talk in person. Now, most see that instant messenger and e-mail are just another way to communicate with one’s network of friends and coworkers.

I don’t think that I will ever personally use a MUD; I’m just not interested. And I think that, just like most things, it would not be healthy to become obsessed with a MUD and never talk to people outside of it. But I think that if it makes one happy, and if it allows one to have fun and feel comfortable to explore different aspects of their personality, who am I to criticize it because some say that it is not part of the “real world?”