Reading the article “A World I Don’t Inhabit: Disquiet and Identity In Second Life and Facebook” raised a few questions in my head. To summarize the articles it discusses mainly two things. the potential of having or using the two amiable social mediums facebook and second life as educational software. Second it touches down upon issues of “virtual” identity and whether it should be trusted or replaced with the real one that one I shall put on hold for now, and we’ll discuss the first point first.
First of all, I shared in class, I don’t think that facebook should/could be used for educational purposes. or any social software for that matter. I suppose you know the saying “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s”. Using facebook in education to me is like (if say I am a teacher) knowing that all my students go to a certain club and. would rather miss my class to hangout in that club. Then I decide that I would go there and teach. It doesn’t sound right. we mentioned in class that a teacher’s argument could be; that I have wordpress and other blogs and websites and I use blackboard and still my students would not give head to all that , would rather leave it all and go to facebook! well we don’t follow them to facebook, we make our stuff more attractive to get their attention them. Plus I pretty much doubt one can have the attention span of a student on facebook long enough. As it makes any information about anyone a click away.
So it will serve as a distraction for instead one posting a comment on one’s post he could then make a posting on his profile image or check out common friends.. Also it gives way to mixing personal with professional life. You don’t want that happening in class. It’s ancestry, and does not make everyone comfortable to mix the workplace with personal life.
The other Idea I wish to share about regarding virtual identities. Reading the paper made me reflect on the notion of real and virtual identities or what they call “Real Life” and “Second Life”.Also about one’s self image and who one’s portrayal of it. It made me realize that everything one does not just in the “virtual world”( as the virtual world is part of the real world as our dr. says..) it reflects who I am or who I believe myself to be. Thinking what kind of image do I want to to convey. This does not necessarily mean that one hides one’s identity but knowing who you are should show up in you actions.. And what you do reflects how you see yourself.
The article also raised the idea of trust and it pointed out that you can not trust what you can not see and raising up the issue of multiple identities.. Well (Thomas) I disagree. I am with you about understanding people more when you meet them face-to-face and read their facial expression and tone of voice. but one can also hide his intentions and act out well in real life as well.
Actually regarding the issue of multiple identities in virtual life, well can have that in the real life too but maybe not as much… It is all about , like the author says, what ‘face’ do you want to show on “face book”.
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