2010
After waking up late in the morning, he turned his computer on and checked his e-mails while brushing his teeth. Along the first cup of coffee of the day, he tweeted about himself in 140 characters via Twitter. Then he opened his Facebook account and checked if there is any new notification. After commenting on his Facebook friends’ photos and status updates, he started reading and commenting on newly written blog posts of the day using his RSS reader. Of course he didn’t forget to check his favorite YouTube channels if there is any new video uploaded. Then, while eating his breakfast he played with his online character in the Second Life game. For more than 2-3 hours a day, he uses his access to internet for either communication and interaction with other online people or for content generation. These are his almost responsibilities for that he is staying in contact with his virtual social space.
Introduction
Communicating through e-mails, twitting, checking Facebook photos and status updates, following and commenting on blogs with a RSS reader, sharing a video on YouTube or playing an online game with an online character are just some forms of the 21st century style virtual social interaction. These digital interactions turn individuals’ attention from the real world to the virtual world and whether you are very much interested or not in this type of online participation, you have a more or less different identity than the one in the real world. Once an individual is online, a detachment occurs from the body and the identity he owns in the real world, as the need for the body and existing identity is no longer required in the virtual world and the user can participate separately from it.
In this paper, my theory is that although virtual world wouldn’t exist without the real world and although they are not truly separated, it is a fact that today the individuals have the chance to renew their identities with the help of internet, creating a virtual identity as they wish to have in the real world. Although there are many important points to be discussed about the issue, I will try to stay in a particular outline that I prefer to extend in its boundaries. Throughout the paper I will explain how this new virtual world space is constructed through time as a result of Web 1.0’s evolution to Web 2.0; how and in which conditions and reasons virtual identities are shaped by individuals themselves; why it is difficult for internet users to exit this newly emerged digital world and return to their former non-virtual life-style. After these points, in the last part I will examine Facebook, which is an online social networking platform, and highlight several attributes and statistics about it.
Discussing the Differences Between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0
Before coming to analyze the reasons of how virtual identity concept is formed, it will be proper to understand the evolution of world wide web via the change from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and its consequences. Simply the outcomes of this change resulted in a more user participated virtual space which is more different than the one in the past. The phrase “Web 2.0” was first mentioned in a conference in San Francisco, California in 1994, where the leading figures of online innovation community met each other (Graham, 2005). They were seeing the existing and upcoming changes in the online world, which I will briefly mention below, and to emphasize these, they divided the internet history into two: Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.
Avoiding the technical explanations such as changing infrastructures of websites or improving programming and scripting languages, in this section there will be basic explanations for how differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 made evolutionary changes in the virtual society. In fact it should be underlined that a virtual community of what we understand today is basically a consequence of the changes between these two. Fundamentally it is the recent understanding of user participation which changed everything internet consumers knew before.
Expanding reciprocity between user and provider, which was not subsistent in the past, made web change into a platform where you can exchange data and information in several simple and quick ways. Actually data exchange was the driving force in this revolution which means everybody can be a contributor in the virtual world and create his own space. For instance, one of the prominent examples of Web 2.0 concept, Blogger (http://www.blogger.com) can help you create a free personal website for yourself in a couple of minutes, which is called a blog, where you can post your thoughts, feelings or put pictures and videos into it simply. In the past creating a personal website was not only difficult, as you had to know a scripting language, but also expensive. Likewise, Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), with a subtitle of free encyclopedia, is also another example which is created with user generated content. Before the concept of user generated content of Web 2.0, the most popular encyclopedic data provider was Britannica (http://www.britannica.com) where users were only consumers without any chance of content participation.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is another formation of newly emerged virtual world, where you can track websites or blogs you prefer. The system simply alerts you when new posts or updates occur in the websites you follow and instead of checking on every website you follow if there is any new content, it allows user to notice and access updated websites in just seconds. Moreover, there is this new P2P (Peer to Peer) file sharing system, where every client share products like mp3s, movies etc unlike in the former client-server interaction where transaction only happens if client requests service from the server. So, using practices like RSS and P2P or generating content in a simple and fast way enable internet consumers to create their own space in the virtual world where they do not need to request service from a few providers.
In addition to a virtual space of every individual, now there is the chance for everyone to create their own virtual identity through instant messaging services, social networking websites and online games. To start with, instant messaging services like MSN Messenger or ICQ are providing an alternative communication model to calling each other via telephones that you can communicate with your friends sitting in front of a computer. Moreover, social networking sites like Facebook (http://www.facebook.com) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) or online games like Second Life (http://secondlife.com) enable individuals to create their virtual identity as they prefer to be. What is remarkable is the fact that while a new world wide web understanding of content generation ability or not only consumerist but also provider practices are appeared, it is also led to a circumstance that individuals are now able to renew their identities virtually where many of the basic cues about personality and social role we are accustomed to in the real world is absent and ambiguous in this disembodied world of virtuality (Kollock and Smith 1999, p. 29).
Reasons to Construct Virtual Identities
For hundreds of years, humanity existed in one way or another without the digital world we now experience. Every individual had his own identity and social space without generating content or sharing data on the internet. Is the advancement of technology the only reason for our generation’s search for a virtual space and identity? Extending communication technologies brought new ways of being, new chains of values and new sensibilities (Holmes 1997, p. 29) but what reasons encourage individuals to construct new identities and new virtual social spaces in the non-real world? Three conditions are essential in my opinion: First one is realizing the existence of the world society via internet and consequently feeling like a smaller piece than imagined. Second one is the opportunity to construct the self-identity from the start and the last one is the easy accessibility to the virtual world. These three are combined with the advancing technology which let individuals easily generate content, build online identities and create a new space for themselves.
Before spending hours of time in the internet while social networking, chatting with people, playing online games or generating content via blogging services, individuals’ social interaction was generally around their neighborhood and work places. In today’s techno-social world space, you can get in touch and even be friends with a Chinese or African guy that you probably will not see in your life for once. The world population was again crowded before the advancement of technology and internet but the social environment we were interested in was only our close neighborhood. It was realized that the communication with people outside the neighborhood was possible, thanks to the advanced online opportunities. So if we change the former definition of social circle and integrate it with the reality of social circle of the virtual world, then it can be seen that the location we fill in the new virtual social circle is a lot smaller than the one in the former neighborhood-social circle. Now there are more than millions of people in the internet and it is possible to notice them as long as they generate content, use social networking web sites and build social spaces of their own. As a consequence it is normal to feel like a small virtual grain of virtual sand in this virtual desert.
After all, this “feeling like a small grain of sand” condition and its consequence as a trigger and the motivation to extend it went arm-in-arm with the opportunity of content generation in the internet. Owing to blogging services, an understanding of citizen journalism (McNair 2009, p. 223) appeared and as a blog owner or content generator in another web service people realized that they have the opportunity to enter a social circle much bigger than their neighborhood. The enthusiasm to feel like more than a small grain of sand and a largely self-referential desire motivated by personal fulfillment changed the dynamics of the social circles of individuals once and for all (Papacharissi 2009, p. 230). In this point one can remember the famous quote of Andy Warhol which is “In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” and change it to “Today everyone can be famous in any minute.”
Another reason or condition that motivates individuals to create online identities is the possibility to virtually construct identities from the start which they are not satisfied in reality. This renewing phenomenon is mentioned in a satirical cartoon by Peter Steiner in The New Yorker in 1993 in which a dog sitting in front of a computer talks to another: “On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog” (UNC, 1997). In other words, reconstructing the identities via the social networking websites or other online communication forms enabled human beings to reshape their appearances as they would like to be. This virtual reconstruction and the feeling of conscious or unconscious disembodiment from the real world via the online practices do not mean a total change in the real world appearance and identities of individuals. Still, this availability of virtual reshaping definitely has more than an imaginary effect in real lives as nearly all the interaction in the online world occurs with online people who also have real world identities. For instance, as one Facebook user makes comment on a photo of his friend’s, this interaction will not only stay in the online sphere and will have an influence in the real world. This may well be the consequence of the interference of the real and virtual worlds.
Additional triggers of will to have a place in the virtual world are its easy accessibility and being free of charge. If you have an internet accessible computer and internet provider, all the virtual doors of the digital world is open for you to enter and create a new and also a non-real space and identity which is also nearly free of charge. As the advancement of technology goes beyond our imaginations comparing to 1990s, now many people have notebooks to log on to the internet in anywhere they want and even use a cell phone to check e-mails or the updates in favorite blogs or social networking websites. In some respect this means that individuals have the possibility to carry their virtual identities along with themselves. It is not difficult to foresee that as the improvement in mobile access to the internet and in the wireless technologies continue, the interference of virtual and real worlds will not be a subject of an utopian world.
Binding Power of the Virtual World
The reasons I have mentioned above basically tried to explain how this virtual identity and virtual space phenomena nearly replaced or at least had an irreversible change in the real equivalents. But is there any chance to exit this digital world and return back to our non-virtual daily lives? Besides, if it is even possible, do we want to return to our former life-styles? The fact is that the ability to change and form identities of themselves gives people the sense of confidence they need. As long as you have your access codes to your online identity, you have the power to present yourself as you prefer to other online people. However the only way to keep this power alive is to stay online. Besides staying online is not enough to keep your online identity breathing, you also have to generate content, share mp3s, movies etc or contribute to a social networking website with your existence. This dependency condition proves a binding interaction where the both parts need each other but more importantly the individual need the virtual space as the virtual world can place anyone as soon as he quits. But does the individual, who had once experienced the digital climate, have a replacement for the virtual world?
There is another point to mention which is the constant innovation habit in the digital world. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of the social networking website Facebook, is one of the contributors to the innovative atmosphere of the online world: “We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are” (Digital Beat, 2010). The norms he is talking about are in fact the issues which make internet users feel an obligation to stay connected as long as they can. The pressure not to get behind of the frequently innovating digital world and the motivation to be keeping attached to the system, which enable users protect their presence in the virtual world, make them got caught by the binding spirit of the internet. All those conditions make it difficult for internet consumers to give up their efforts to quit which have possible consequence of alienation from the virtual society.
The result of this binding process and the search for a digital identity makes a total blindness for individuals in which they are drifting away from the non-virtual world. This blindness of virtuality phenomena is also pointed out in some Hollywood movies, one of which has the most impact called The Matrix (1999). In the movie, a non-real system called “matrix”, which is developed by the machines created by humanity, is deceiving the human beings and using their energy to extend their machinery world. The dialog between the leading character called Neo and the man called Choi is remarkable: “My computer… You ever have that feeling where you don't know if you're awake or still dreaming?” “Mm, hey, it sounds to me like you need to unplug, man.” Another dialog, this time between Neo and another character called Morpheus, shows the problematic of body and mind separation which can be reflected to our reality-virtuality paradigm: “I thought it wasn't real. If you're killed in the Matrix, you die here?” “Your mind makes it real. The body cannot live without the mind.” (IMSDB, 2006)
Analyzing Facebook: A Binding Social Network
The identities we own in the real world can be noticed with our actions, choices, behaviors, speeches etc. Facebook is one of the most popular social networking websites that carries the hard labor of defining self in the real world to the virtual world where we can feel our existence in an another way. It also fits the procedure of the non-real world that you can form your identity nearly as well as you like. Below you will find some really interesting facts and statistics about Facebook which is all taken from the press room page of the website.
Facebook is founded in February, 2004 by Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg and his three friends. It defines itself as social utility that helps people communicate and share information more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. In the end of its first year, 2004, Facebook reached 1 million users which in 5 years in 2009 achieved an enormous number of 350 millions from which a 70% is from outside the United States. In addition it strikes attention, as it is an American foundation, that it now gives its service in 70 languages with the help of more than 1000 employees around the world which means a large sphere of neighborhood for users.
Here are some facts about how individuals take Facebook and the virtual reality it possesses seriously: Half of the total 350 millions of users enter the website in daily basis and an average user stays in the Facebook for approximately 55 minutes. Moreover, Facebook enables users to create fan groups where people join other people that share the same taste just like in the real world where individuals come together at the same table to share similar opinions. Again, in one month, an average user clicks the interactive “like” button for 9 times and posts 25 comments on Facebook content that is generated by users, which enable them express their appreciation and help establish a social space.
Content generation is getting in a more important position for Facebook’s plans as since they noticed that the content which is generated by the users make them unconsciously attach themselves to the virtuality, they started working on developments that make it easier for users to create data and share information. Today 2,5 billion photos and 3,5 million event links are uploaded by users each month. Furthermore, 3,5 billion pieces of content like web links, web stories, blog posts and notes etc are shared each week again by users. These massive numbers help Facebook and the consumers build a virtual world that is came out of real world and then become somehow a sort of threat against the real world and real identities. After all I wonder if the Facebook’s closeness to the real world makes us connect and get attached to the virtuality of Facebook more.
Facebook is not only working on infra-firm developments, it is also planning to possess more space in the internet. Since December 2008, Facebook allows other websites in the internet to make connections with its database of users by using the “Facebook Connect” system. Facebook Connect lets website owners to easily create links between their own web pages and Facebook which in result helps Facebook to have more generated content and also free advertisement in some way. In return website owners have the opportunity to reach more people via the large database of Facebook. In numbers, more than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since its availability and more than 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites every month.
Another feature that makes individuals to stay connected is the availability of the mobile access, thanks to the recent developments in the wireless and cell phone technologies. There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices and people that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users. This constant togetherness of individuals and Facebook causes a relationship that drives people to a feeling of not to fall behind of recent updates, contents and news. In the end it becomes a relationship in which individuals are -intentionally or not- made to carry their virtual identities to their real worlds.
Last point in my Facebook study is the one that helps my argument about the binding atmosphere of the virtual world and nearly the impossibility of individuals’ exit from it. The fact is you cannot leave Facebook permanently. It does not let you end your relationship with itself forever and if you decide to close your account it just freezes it until the time you come back. It is already difficult to even think about leaving your virtual identity and it seems that it does not matter if you decide to close your virtual identity or not, Facebook does not let you do it anyhow.
Conclusion
Throughout the paper I tried to explain how and in which conditions and reasons individuals create virtual identities and virtual spaces of their own. The intention of detachment from the body and the identity in the real world is mostly triggered by the evolution of internet technology and its consequences. After the emergence of Web 2.0, internet users were able to generate content, participate in the social sphere of the digital world and contribute to it in one way or another. But is the advancement in technology the only trigger for individuals to deepen their existence in the virtual world? Realizing the presence of the world society more seriously than before -thanks to the social networking websites, blogging services and other Web 2.0 features- individuals’ feeling of “a small grain of sand in the desert” encouraged them to establish a more durable place in the virtual world by generating content and sharing information etc.
Also easy accessibility to the internet and the opportunity to construct their identities from the start, though it is non-real, made individuals attach themselves to the virtual system. Furthermore, the constant innovation of the digital world and the pressure not to fall behind from the virtual social space caused individuals bound themselves to this phenomena day by day. However this virtual rebuilding and the position of disembodiment from the real world through the online practices do not mean a total alteration in the real world appearance and identities of individuals. Yet, this availability of virtual reshaping definitely has more than a sentimental effect in real lives as nearly all the interaction in the online world occurs with online people who also have real world identities.
Bibliography
Digital Beat. January 13, 2010. Facebook and Privacy: Trying to be everything to everyone is a minefield. http://digital.venturebeat.com/2010/01/13/facebook-privacy-2/ (accessed January 13, 2010)
Facebook Press Room. 2009. http://www.facebook.com/press.php/ (accessed January 13, 2010)
Graham, Paul. 2005. Web 2.0. http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html/ (accessed January 10, 2010)
Holmes, David. 1997. Virtual Identity: Communities of Broadcast, Communities of Interactivity in Virtual Politics: Identity and Community in Cyberspace, ed. David Holmes. Wiltshire: Redwood Books.
Kollock, Peter and Smith, Marc A. 1999. Communities in Cyberspace in Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge
McNair, Brian. 2009. The Internet and The Changing Global Environment in Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics, ed. Andrew Chadwick and Philip N. Howard. Abingdon: Routledge
Papacharissi, Zizi. 2009. The Virtual Sphere 2.0: The Internet, The Public Space, and Beyond in Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics, ed. Andrew Chadwick and Philip N. Howard. Abingdon: Routledge
The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDB). 2006. The Matrix, Script. http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Matrix,-The.html/ (accessed January 13, 2010)
University of North Carolina (UNC). August 27, 1997. On the Internet, Nobody Knows You are a Dog. http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.html/ (accessed January 10, 2010)
After waking up late in the morning, he turned his computer on and checked his e-mails while brushing his teeth. Along the first cup of coffee of the day, he tweeted about himself in 140 characters via Twitter. Then he opened his Facebook account and checked if there is any new notification. After commenting on his Facebook friends’ photos and status updates, he started reading and commenting on newly written blog posts of the day using his RSS reader. Of course he didn’t forget to check his favorite YouTube channels if there is any new video uploaded. Then, while eating his breakfast he played with his online character in the Second Life game. For more than 2-3 hours a day, he uses his access to internet for either communication and interaction with other online people or for content generation. These are his almost responsibilities for that he is staying in contact with his virtual social space.
Introduction
Communicating through e-mails, twitting, checking Facebook photos and status updates, following and commenting on blogs with a RSS reader, sharing a video on YouTube or playing an online game with an online character are just some forms of the 21st century style virtual social interaction. These digital interactions turn individuals’ attention from the real world to the virtual world and whether you are very much interested or not in this type of online participation, you have a more or less different identity than the one in the real world. Once an individual is online, a detachment occurs from the body and the identity he owns in the real world, as the need for the body and existing identity is no longer required in the virtual world and the user can participate separately from it.
In this paper, my theory is that although virtual world wouldn’t exist without the real world and although they are not truly separated, it is a fact that today the individuals have the chance to renew their identities with the help of internet, creating a virtual identity as they wish to have in the real world. Although there are many important points to be discussed about the issue, I will try to stay in a particular outline that I prefer to extend in its boundaries. Throughout the paper I will explain how this new virtual world space is constructed through time as a result of Web 1.0’s evolution to Web 2.0; how and in which conditions and reasons virtual identities are shaped by individuals themselves; why it is difficult for internet users to exit this newly emerged digital world and return to their former non-virtual life-style. After these points, in the last part I will examine Facebook, which is an online social networking platform, and highlight several attributes and statistics about it.
Discussing the Differences Between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0
Before coming to analyze the reasons of how virtual identity concept is formed, it will be proper to understand the evolution of world wide web via the change from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and its consequences. Simply the outcomes of this change resulted in a more user participated virtual space which is more different than the one in the past. The phrase “Web 2.0” was first mentioned in a conference in San Francisco, California in 1994, where the leading figures of online innovation community met each other (Graham, 2005). They were seeing the existing and upcoming changes in the online world, which I will briefly mention below, and to emphasize these, they divided the internet history into two: Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.
Avoiding the technical explanations such as changing infrastructures of websites or improving programming and scripting languages, in this section there will be basic explanations for how differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 made evolutionary changes in the virtual society. In fact it should be underlined that a virtual community of what we understand today is basically a consequence of the changes between these two. Fundamentally it is the recent understanding of user participation which changed everything internet consumers knew before.
Expanding reciprocity between user and provider, which was not subsistent in the past, made web change into a platform where you can exchange data and information in several simple and quick ways. Actually data exchange was the driving force in this revolution which means everybody can be a contributor in the virtual world and create his own space. For instance, one of the prominent examples of Web 2.0 concept, Blogger (http://www.blogger.com) can help you create a free personal website for yourself in a couple of minutes, which is called a blog, where you can post your thoughts, feelings or put pictures and videos into it simply. In the past creating a personal website was not only difficult, as you had to know a scripting language, but also expensive. Likewise, Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), with a subtitle of free encyclopedia, is also another example which is created with user generated content. Before the concept of user generated content of Web 2.0, the most popular encyclopedic data provider was Britannica (http://www.britannica.com) where users were only consumers without any chance of content participation.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is another formation of newly emerged virtual world, where you can track websites or blogs you prefer. The system simply alerts you when new posts or updates occur in the websites you follow and instead of checking on every website you follow if there is any new content, it allows user to notice and access updated websites in just seconds. Moreover, there is this new P2P (Peer to Peer) file sharing system, where every client share products like mp3s, movies etc unlike in the former client-server interaction where transaction only happens if client requests service from the server. So, using practices like RSS and P2P or generating content in a simple and fast way enable internet consumers to create their own space in the virtual world where they do not need to request service from a few providers.
In addition to a virtual space of every individual, now there is the chance for everyone to create their own virtual identity through instant messaging services, social networking websites and online games. To start with, instant messaging services like MSN Messenger or ICQ are providing an alternative communication model to calling each other via telephones that you can communicate with your friends sitting in front of a computer. Moreover, social networking sites like Facebook (http://www.facebook.com) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) or online games like Second Life (http://secondlife.com) enable individuals to create their virtual identity as they prefer to be. What is remarkable is the fact that while a new world wide web understanding of content generation ability or not only consumerist but also provider practices are appeared, it is also led to a circumstance that individuals are now able to renew their identities virtually where many of the basic cues about personality and social role we are accustomed to in the real world is absent and ambiguous in this disembodied world of virtuality (Kollock and Smith 1999, p. 29).
Reasons to Construct Virtual Identities
For hundreds of years, humanity existed in one way or another without the digital world we now experience. Every individual had his own identity and social space without generating content or sharing data on the internet. Is the advancement of technology the only reason for our generation’s search for a virtual space and identity? Extending communication technologies brought new ways of being, new chains of values and new sensibilities (Holmes 1997, p. 29) but what reasons encourage individuals to construct new identities and new virtual social spaces in the non-real world? Three conditions are essential in my opinion: First one is realizing the existence of the world society via internet and consequently feeling like a smaller piece than imagined. Second one is the opportunity to construct the self-identity from the start and the last one is the easy accessibility to the virtual world. These three are combined with the advancing technology which let individuals easily generate content, build online identities and create a new space for themselves.
Before spending hours of time in the internet while social networking, chatting with people, playing online games or generating content via blogging services, individuals’ social interaction was generally around their neighborhood and work places. In today’s techno-social world space, you can get in touch and even be friends with a Chinese or African guy that you probably will not see in your life for once. The world population was again crowded before the advancement of technology and internet but the social environment we were interested in was only our close neighborhood. It was realized that the communication with people outside the neighborhood was possible, thanks to the advanced online opportunities. So if we change the former definition of social circle and integrate it with the reality of social circle of the virtual world, then it can be seen that the location we fill in the new virtual social circle is a lot smaller than the one in the former neighborhood-social circle. Now there are more than millions of people in the internet and it is possible to notice them as long as they generate content, use social networking web sites and build social spaces of their own. As a consequence it is normal to feel like a small virtual grain of virtual sand in this virtual desert.
After all, this “feeling like a small grain of sand” condition and its consequence as a trigger and the motivation to extend it went arm-in-arm with the opportunity of content generation in the internet. Owing to blogging services, an understanding of citizen journalism (McNair 2009, p. 223) appeared and as a blog owner or content generator in another web service people realized that they have the opportunity to enter a social circle much bigger than their neighborhood. The enthusiasm to feel like more than a small grain of sand and a largely self-referential desire motivated by personal fulfillment changed the dynamics of the social circles of individuals once and for all (Papacharissi 2009, p. 230). In this point one can remember the famous quote of Andy Warhol which is “In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” and change it to “Today everyone can be famous in any minute.”
Another reason or condition that motivates individuals to create online identities is the possibility to virtually construct identities from the start which they are not satisfied in reality. This renewing phenomenon is mentioned in a satirical cartoon by Peter Steiner in The New Yorker in 1993 in which a dog sitting in front of a computer talks to another: “On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog” (UNC, 1997). In other words, reconstructing the identities via the social networking websites or other online communication forms enabled human beings to reshape their appearances as they would like to be. This virtual reconstruction and the feeling of conscious or unconscious disembodiment from the real world via the online practices do not mean a total change in the real world appearance and identities of individuals. Still, this availability of virtual reshaping definitely has more than an imaginary effect in real lives as nearly all the interaction in the online world occurs with online people who also have real world identities. For instance, as one Facebook user makes comment on a photo of his friend’s, this interaction will not only stay in the online sphere and will have an influence in the real world. This may well be the consequence of the interference of the real and virtual worlds.
Additional triggers of will to have a place in the virtual world are its easy accessibility and being free of charge. If you have an internet accessible computer and internet provider, all the virtual doors of the digital world is open for you to enter and create a new and also a non-real space and identity which is also nearly free of charge. As the advancement of technology goes beyond our imaginations comparing to 1990s, now many people have notebooks to log on to the internet in anywhere they want and even use a cell phone to check e-mails or the updates in favorite blogs or social networking websites. In some respect this means that individuals have the possibility to carry their virtual identities along with themselves. It is not difficult to foresee that as the improvement in mobile access to the internet and in the wireless technologies continue, the interference of virtual and real worlds will not be a subject of an utopian world.
Binding Power of the Virtual World
The reasons I have mentioned above basically tried to explain how this virtual identity and virtual space phenomena nearly replaced or at least had an irreversible change in the real equivalents. But is there any chance to exit this digital world and return back to our non-virtual daily lives? Besides, if it is even possible, do we want to return to our former life-styles? The fact is that the ability to change and form identities of themselves gives people the sense of confidence they need. As long as you have your access codes to your online identity, you have the power to present yourself as you prefer to other online people. However the only way to keep this power alive is to stay online. Besides staying online is not enough to keep your online identity breathing, you also have to generate content, share mp3s, movies etc or contribute to a social networking website with your existence. This dependency condition proves a binding interaction where the both parts need each other but more importantly the individual need the virtual space as the virtual world can place anyone as soon as he quits. But does the individual, who had once experienced the digital climate, have a replacement for the virtual world?
There is another point to mention which is the constant innovation habit in the digital world. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of the social networking website Facebook, is one of the contributors to the innovative atmosphere of the online world: “We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are” (Digital Beat, 2010). The norms he is talking about are in fact the issues which make internet users feel an obligation to stay connected as long as they can. The pressure not to get behind of the frequently innovating digital world and the motivation to be keeping attached to the system, which enable users protect their presence in the virtual world, make them got caught by the binding spirit of the internet. All those conditions make it difficult for internet consumers to give up their efforts to quit which have possible consequence of alienation from the virtual society.
The result of this binding process and the search for a digital identity makes a total blindness for individuals in which they are drifting away from the non-virtual world. This blindness of virtuality phenomena is also pointed out in some Hollywood movies, one of which has the most impact called The Matrix (1999). In the movie, a non-real system called “matrix”, which is developed by the machines created by humanity, is deceiving the human beings and using their energy to extend their machinery world. The dialog between the leading character called Neo and the man called Choi is remarkable: “My computer… You ever have that feeling where you don't know if you're awake or still dreaming?” “Mm, hey, it sounds to me like you need to unplug, man.” Another dialog, this time between Neo and another character called Morpheus, shows the problematic of body and mind separation which can be reflected to our reality-virtuality paradigm: “I thought it wasn't real. If you're killed in the Matrix, you die here?” “Your mind makes it real. The body cannot live without the mind.” (IMSDB, 2006)
Analyzing Facebook: A Binding Social Network
The identities we own in the real world can be noticed with our actions, choices, behaviors, speeches etc. Facebook is one of the most popular social networking websites that carries the hard labor of defining self in the real world to the virtual world where we can feel our existence in an another way. It also fits the procedure of the non-real world that you can form your identity nearly as well as you like. Below you will find some really interesting facts and statistics about Facebook which is all taken from the press room page of the website.
Facebook is founded in February, 2004 by Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg and his three friends. It defines itself as social utility that helps people communicate and share information more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. In the end of its first year, 2004, Facebook reached 1 million users which in 5 years in 2009 achieved an enormous number of 350 millions from which a 70% is from outside the United States. In addition it strikes attention, as it is an American foundation, that it now gives its service in 70 languages with the help of more than 1000 employees around the world which means a large sphere of neighborhood for users.
Here are some facts about how individuals take Facebook and the virtual reality it possesses seriously: Half of the total 350 millions of users enter the website in daily basis and an average user stays in the Facebook for approximately 55 minutes. Moreover, Facebook enables users to create fan groups where people join other people that share the same taste just like in the real world where individuals come together at the same table to share similar opinions. Again, in one month, an average user clicks the interactive “like” button for 9 times and posts 25 comments on Facebook content that is generated by users, which enable them express their appreciation and help establish a social space.
Content generation is getting in a more important position for Facebook’s plans as since they noticed that the content which is generated by the users make them unconsciously attach themselves to the virtuality, they started working on developments that make it easier for users to create data and share information. Today 2,5 billion photos and 3,5 million event links are uploaded by users each month. Furthermore, 3,5 billion pieces of content like web links, web stories, blog posts and notes etc are shared each week again by users. These massive numbers help Facebook and the consumers build a virtual world that is came out of real world and then become somehow a sort of threat against the real world and real identities. After all I wonder if the Facebook’s closeness to the real world makes us connect and get attached to the virtuality of Facebook more.
Facebook is not only working on infra-firm developments, it is also planning to possess more space in the internet. Since December 2008, Facebook allows other websites in the internet to make connections with its database of users by using the “Facebook Connect” system. Facebook Connect lets website owners to easily create links between their own web pages and Facebook which in result helps Facebook to have more generated content and also free advertisement in some way. In return website owners have the opportunity to reach more people via the large database of Facebook. In numbers, more than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since its availability and more than 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites every month.
Another feature that makes individuals to stay connected is the availability of the mobile access, thanks to the recent developments in the wireless and cell phone technologies. There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices and people that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users. This constant togetherness of individuals and Facebook causes a relationship that drives people to a feeling of not to fall behind of recent updates, contents and news. In the end it becomes a relationship in which individuals are -intentionally or not- made to carry their virtual identities to their real worlds.
Last point in my Facebook study is the one that helps my argument about the binding atmosphere of the virtual world and nearly the impossibility of individuals’ exit from it. The fact is you cannot leave Facebook permanently. It does not let you end your relationship with itself forever and if you decide to close your account it just freezes it until the time you come back. It is already difficult to even think about leaving your virtual identity and it seems that it does not matter if you decide to close your virtual identity or not, Facebook does not let you do it anyhow.
Conclusion
Throughout the paper I tried to explain how and in which conditions and reasons individuals create virtual identities and virtual spaces of their own. The intention of detachment from the body and the identity in the real world is mostly triggered by the evolution of internet technology and its consequences. After the emergence of Web 2.0, internet users were able to generate content, participate in the social sphere of the digital world and contribute to it in one way or another. But is the advancement in technology the only trigger for individuals to deepen their existence in the virtual world? Realizing the presence of the world society more seriously than before -thanks to the social networking websites, blogging services and other Web 2.0 features- individuals’ feeling of “a small grain of sand in the desert” encouraged them to establish a more durable place in the virtual world by generating content and sharing information etc.
Also easy accessibility to the internet and the opportunity to construct their identities from the start, though it is non-real, made individuals attach themselves to the virtual system. Furthermore, the constant innovation of the digital world and the pressure not to fall behind from the virtual social space caused individuals bound themselves to this phenomena day by day. However this virtual rebuilding and the position of disembodiment from the real world through the online practices do not mean a total alteration in the real world appearance and identities of individuals. Yet, this availability of virtual reshaping definitely has more than a sentimental effect in real lives as nearly all the interaction in the online world occurs with online people who also have real world identities.
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