Given the vast diversity of material and services that are now available via the World Wide Web it is hard to believe that, although the Web was invented in 1989, it really only exploded into life around 1994.

The speed at which the web took off is mind-boggling, and has created a whole new landscape in which people are able to work, buy and sell, make fortunes or lose them, make friends, influence new people and even find potential partners.

From ‘Bridget Jones’ style e-mail flirting across the office to Internet dating agencies, the opportunities offered to the singleton to find friendship (maybe more) has become increasingly easy. Punch in a few details and away you go, no more hanging round bars or clubs, no more signing up to basket-weaving classes, no longer reliant on meeting friends of friends at parties.

And in the electronic age you don’t have to spend your valuable time actually meeting potential dates, you can have online dates in a ‘chat room’ where you can have a typed ‘conversation’ to get to know each other. Don’t like someone, then move on before you even meet in ‘real life’.

One of the most appealing factors about using meeting over the Internet is the control one has over what you reveal, you can choose exactly what you want to let people know about yourself - the ultimate blind date where even your physical appearance can be kept out of the equation. This appeals to many, as it can be argued that this allows people to judge each other purely on personality.

Of course, this applies to far more than just people looking for love. There are many people who, for a variety of reasons, may find the ability to explore and develop different aspects of themselves through presenting themselves in new ways when online, an appealing prospect. It can be as simple as creating a webpage, where both the content and style is entirely at one’s own control. This has been seen particularly with some teenagers who have found this offers them an almost unique opportunity to express their ‘true’ self as a ‘virtual personality’, away from peer pressure.

As you start to look further into the facilities available on the Internet it becomes apparent that there are others who find it offers them a positive benefit in being able to represent themselves online. For example, some people with disabilities have found that the Internet allows them to bypass many of the preconceptions and stereotypes that they find in life. The decision as to when, or even if, they bring it up is entirely in their own hands - online conversations can focus simply on personalities and ideas.

A number of television programmes, such as Sex In The City, have raised some of the more amusing possibilities of enhancing one’s characteristics when on-line, with characters using pseudonyms of ‘Rick9+’ and ‘BigTool4U’. Whilst that might raise a smile, there are other examples that highlight serious issues. In his book, Cyberpower: The culture and politics of Cyberspace and the Internet*, Tim Jordan offers an example of a virtual personality…

"In 1982, a disabled woman appeared on a computer conferencing system run by CompuServe. These systems allow both real-time exchanges and posting of messages. Julie was a neuropsychologist who had been in a horrific car accident that had left her mute, paraplegic and so disfigured she could not bear to meet people face-to-face. She was on the verge of suicide when a friend gave her a computer and a modem and with these she discovered online conversations where her physical appearance and abilities did not seem to matter.

Julie ... quickly became a fascinating, lively and committed participant in CompuServe's virtual communities, though owing to her appearance and inability to talk she refused to meet any of her virtual friends in real life. She set up a women's discussion group and offered aid to some women with suicidal tendencies, helping them overcome depression or chemical dependencies.

Julie's own social life blossomed online. She made more and more friends and began to practise online sex, first tentatively and then flamboyantly. Her online greeting began to reflect her huge online presence: 'HI!!!!!!!'. Offline her life blossomed as well. She met and married an astonishingly supportive husband, travelled and resurrected her career, but she maintained her rigid refusal to meet any of her online friends offline.

Julie and her online life began to seem a little too much of everything to be true. Some disabled women felt uncertain about the ease with which Julie's marriage overcame her disabilities. And then disaster struck. Julie became seriously ill with an obscure disease and hovered near death. As with . . . many other instances, the virtual community mobilised in an astonishing show of support and collective grief. Even so, Julie's husband respected Julie's wish not to meet her online friends and deflected any attempt to see her. To great joy, Julie pulled through and recovered.

But someone worked out which hospital Julie should have been in and called - no Julie had been in the hospital. Slowly at first and then quickly, Julie's online persona unravelled. In place of an atheistic, sexually alive (even predatory), dope-smoking, hard-drinking, flamboyant female, disabled neuropsychologist, there was a conservative, Jewish, tee-total, drug-fearing, low-key, sexually awkward, male, able-bodied psychiatrist. Sanford, who had been typing Julie all along, replaced Julie.

Sanford had once joined online conversations with the self-chosen pseudonym of Doctor. He had then had an intimate private conversation online with a woman, during which he realised the woman thought he was a female psychiatrist. He found a depth of emotional conversation he claimed he had always missed with women. He then created an online female who offered the greatest chance of not being detected and Julie was born.

When Julie became sick, it was Sanford who had become frightened of the extent of her circle of friends and of the depth of her intimacies, but the passionate response had made it impossible for him to kill her. Male and able-bodied were two components of Sanford's identity that shook Julie's friends and lovers. Many felt betrayed, cheated, assaulted and even raped. They had poured their lives out to Julie and thought she had done the same to them. They had loved her and screwed her, but Julie had only ever existed in text while their text was also written on their flesh and blood. Some sought friendship with Sanford, as though Julie had to be inside him somewhere, but for many Sanford simply was not Julie (even if they could have forgiven his lies). . . .”

In this online world we are stripped of almost every non-verbal method of communication; facial expressions, tone of voice and gestures are just a few of the ways in which we, often subconsciously, analyse people and decide whether to believe them, whether to trust them… When typed words are your only guide it can be much easier to be misled or to mislead.

Whilst taking on alternative personalities and playing out new roles online can be seen as harmless fun and a way of exploring different aspects of our personalities, there is a serious question as to the potential consequences; what about the other people, the ones who are being misled? Can you still call it ‘role-play’, or is it deceit?

When news stories report individuals using a virtual personality to enable them to make contact with children and lure them into meeting, the question about deceit is easily answered with a resounding ‘yes’. But do such stories show up an underlying truth, that ‘virtual personalities’ are fundamentally wrong, or are there situations where it really can truly merit the phrase ‘role-play’..?

The Open University course Social Science in Action teaches the fundamentals of social science research, based around the topic of the Information Society, including the concept of Online Identities.

Tim Jordan's Cyberpower: The culture and politics of Cyberspace and the Internet is published by Routledge.

Content last updated: 01/12/2003

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