Opposites Attract??
Meet my opposite Juan. The main reason why he is the opposite of me is because he is COLD! I hate being cold and would do ANYTHING to avoid the winters. I enjoy looking at the snow fall from the inside looking out, but I would much rather be on a sunny beach somewhere in paradise. After many hours of frustration and wanting to throw my computer against the wall I was able to save Juan and carry on.
Playing different gender roles on the Internet at times may be thrilling for many. Through the readings and learning about the different personalities that people pursue can be frightening at times. I personally have never entered a chat room or talked with people that I do not know for this reason. It started when I was in middle school when I would talk on-line on AOL and my parents somewhat regulated who I was in contact with and would scare me about horror stories that they “heard�.
When playing a different gender on the internet can be hard and many times impossible. After a certain time, no matter the situation people becomes too comfortable with their “friends� and things start to slip up and their true personality comes out. According to Turkle,� to pass as a woman for any length of time requires understanding how gender inflects speech, manner, and the interpretation of experience.� It would be very hard to be 100% in the other gender role; however I think that it is much easier to do on the internet instead of in person. When looking at the differences between the genders, it is not only their personality but their mannerisms and the way they portray themselves is like black and white. This has just brought to my attention that maybe the people that I have been talking to may not be completely trustworthy in the things they say on-line or I guess now even their gender. I would never think to ask someone what their gender is because I feel as though I just assume based off of their screen name. I myself feel as though I trust people too easily either in person but now as it was brought to my attention through the events that has happened to me this past week that the internet is so much easier to say something on the internet and believing it.
People are so much braver when they do not have to be face to face or hear the tone in the other person’s voice of their emotion. For example for Turkle, Rob, the shy 14 boy uses the internet to almost build up his confidence. He talked about how being on-line he can really just talk, and they could be on line all day long but could never do that in person because of all the pressure he has from society. I feel as though the on-line chatting is almost testing the waters of who you are or where you want to be without the pressures of anyone else for instance making fun of you because of the way that you approached the situation or anything of the sorts.