My Reality is Better Than Yours

In my friends world he’s a six foot tall warlock with lots of weapons that he carries around all day, and he can’t be messed with. In reality he’s a shorty like me and doesn’t walk around with a sword because he’d probably be arrested. Is he a paranoid schizophrenic with impressive delusions? No he’s a gamer who made himself an online avatar to interact within a web based game. He exists in this cyberspace as a very different character. Online we can become anything we want and behave in ways that in the real world would make no sense.

Cyberspace can be seen as a different platform of information and representation than reality. William Gibson is a science fiction writer who tried to define cyberspace. In his view it’s a space where consciousness lives without bodies and a space made out of information. In the real world there cannot be a divide between mind and body but it is something cyberspace can offer. Does that mean we can live forever online? Will my blog still be accessible in 20 years? Maybe but as with yahoo geocities it could well be closed down or maybe it will just become lost in amongst all the other information that will come to exist online. Who decides what information gets deleted and what gets archived? Will it be the web sites owners that decide or the governments?

John Perry Barlow wrote ‘A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' in which he idealizes cyberspace to be a free thinking space that does not discriminate.  However is that true? I think that even online there is an element of selection involved. You can choose what forums or games you want to participate in. In the case of my friend mentioned above whenever he tells people he players World of Warcraft it seems sometimes people will label him as ‘one of those’ and politely switch topic. Even other gamers such as the Call of Duty crowed like to differentiate themselves from WOW players. Barlow’s ideas on cyberspace are lovely but in the real world it seems people will still always find a way to segregate.  With technology increasingly becoming a part of everyday life such as augmented reality (superimposed reality) bus stops in Sweden or a city tour of Copenhagen done half virtually, with our language and writing changing in regards to text talk will it divide us more? I don’t believe it will as we can all use cyberspace as an information tool, but who knows really.