OLR Exercises - Topic 2: Virtual Environments and Cognition

Exercise 2.1: Virtual Environments and your Cognition

a) The Ethics of Facebook.

I have been a member of Facebook for about 12 months. I joined because friends of mine were talking about it and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Initially I was worried about the privacy and security of Facebook, but I became more comfortable because you need to accept people as friends before they can contact you or read your profile. I have also kept the information on my profile to a minimum. My profile photo is of me feeding an elephant in Thailand because the image of me is side on, and so partially obscured (and also because I thought people would focus more on the elephant than me).

Initially I was excited to receive friendship requests from people I had not seen since high school or even primary school. It was great to see what they were doing, where they were living, who was married, who has kids etc... I was soon bombarded with requests to particpate in quizzes, set up gardens or aquariums and to join various causes. In the beginning I would accept these and spend hours procrastinating with these. I now ignore them because I am really not interested and have far better things to do with my time. I really only look at Facebook about once a week, and only then to message people and see what people are up to.

I think there is a range of ethical issues in relation to Facebook, particularly in relation to young people and students, as discussed below:

I know a number of my students have Facebook sites, but I will not accept them as friends. I like to think of my private life as just that, and letting kids from school view my Facebook page will allow them to have more information about me and my friends than I want them to know. Also, sometimes friends might send material or messages with inappropriate language or conent that would be inappropriate for my students to see. I also wonder about ethics in relation to what we might see on students sites if we were "friends" with them. We might see inappropriate behaviour, language and content on their sites. We then would possibly be morally obliged to report some things, the idea of this makes me feel like Big Brother!

The fact you have to accept contacts as friends is an issue for me. I think it is inappropriate for students to think of teachers as "friends" and teachers to think of students as "friends". While I want students to think of me as friendly, approachable and supportive, and therefore someone they can talk to, I think it is unhealthy for them to think of me as their "friend" rather than their teacher.

Also being an adult, I can easily make desicions about who to accept as friends, but perhaps young people might be less selective. It would be very easy to set up an account using bogus information and details. I have searched for friends using their name and school information, and found hundreds of people from around the world with the same name.

I also know of an incident where security did become an issue. A guy I know doesn't believe in Facebook and doesn't have a site. He started getting text messages from an unkown mobile number, obviously from a female. He had no idea who the messages were from, but they were pretty full on. On investigation, it turned out to be an old girlfriend from over 17 years ago. She had seen on his sisters Facebook page that he single. She then rang his work and got his mobile number (another security /ethical issue!!!), and started messaging him. Scary enough for an almost 40 year old male, but how would a younger person deal with this sort of situation!

When searching for CSU, there was 2,800 groups listed with this name. I then searched using Charles Sturt University. There was 108 groups listed under this name. There was then a number of members listed under each one. Finding a particular person could be a challenge!!! I have already joined the ITC510/213 group, posted on the wall and contributed to a discussion on online communities. However, I think the forum and email systems we already have are more convenient ways to communicate.

b) What do I think is the difference between social cognition and visual cognition?

Social cognition refers to the thought processes involved in dealing with and understanding other people. It is about the social interaction between two or more people. It includes the need to understand social rules of engagement, ettiquette, norms and mores. It includes the understanding of body language, gestures and proximity. Different cultures have different rules, ettiquette, norms and mores. One needs to understand these in order to interact successfully with people of different cultures. In a way, the online community breaks down these barriers as people from all cultures need to learn new social cognition processes in order to interact with each other online.

Visual cognition refers to the thought processes involved with visual recognition, combining what we see with what we know. This includes the recognition of faces, objects, pictures and images. Visual cognition in online communities can be distorted. While I have created a 'real' image of myself in Facebook, I have created a 'virtual' image of myself in Second Life. I only show what I want to show of myself. Therefore you cannot always believe what you see!

Exercise 2.2: Virtual Worlds and "Citizenship"

Second Life

Second Life was easy to download and I did not have any technical issues when using the site. I had never heard of Second Life before. When I joined last week, I was nervous to give any personal details so I signed up with my initials SM and a last name that was offered rather than my own. I was greeted by other "newbies" who said they were from Russia, Greece, Serbia and England, but who would know... The people seemed friendly enough but I couldn't trust that they were who they said they were because I was not who I am!

I met a "volunteer" who offered me clothes, shoes, hair, accessories and teleporting options, which I accepted. I felt relatively comfortable in this first space because the people were all new and just experiementing, like me. I enjoyed making myself look different to my own self (more sexier) and flying around the place. Then I teleported to some other places. In the first few, I could not find anyone to talk to. Eventually I did, but they tended to ignore me and I could not think of anything to say.

While I enjoyed the initial experience, I was too shy to really interact with others I do not know, particularly because I didn't feel I could trust anyone or thing. Also, I would need to find topics of interest in order to have something to talk about, which I didn't. I can't see myself coming back here (unless part of this course, of course!).

I cannot envisage using this site with students because of the problems of trust and the very adult nature of the content i.e. very sexed up characters and clothing.

Exercise 2.3: Create and Record Online Persona

Facebook

My Facebook Avatar is based on the real life me. I have a photo of myself and some information about myself in my profile. This is because the people I chat with and contact via Facebook are real life people that I have contact with. I am comfortable with them knowing the real me because they do anyway.

Second Life

The Avatar I created in Second Life was a made up one, a "virtual me." This is because I would be interacting with people I do not know and I did not feel comfortable using real information a bout myself. It was also an opportunity to be "someone else" for a while and take on a character. I was able to look and dress differently than I do. however, I found it difficult to interact "in character" or be someone I am not, even in this virtual world. I guess deep down, I cannot be someone I am not!

Will I have a persistent avatar? Why/Why not?

I will therefore create different avatars based on the type of site used. In sites I feel I can trust and where I feel comfortable interacting with people as myself, I will create avatars based on the real me. However sites I feel a bit nervous about, or where I am worried about people I don't know learning personal information about me, I will create an imagined avatar.

Exercise 2.4: Online Identity and your State of Presence

Dick Hardt, ETech 2006: Who is the Dick on My Site?

The video was a humourous and interesting way of discussing the problems associated with Identity 2.0, that is the need to protect our identity but at the same time being able to identify ourselves with the people that we interact with so that they know who they are dealing with. The fact we have to have multiple usernames and passwords, and remembering them all is an issue for many of us. The video identified some solutions for helping us to verify who we are at the same time as protecting our identity.

One solution was having an online identity management system. We register our personal information with the site. When we need to release personal information, we authorise the information to be released. The system sounds simple, and means the user would only have to input personal information once, instead of everytime we need to verify ourselves. However, I wonder about the security of such information, which unfortunately, will always be an issue when posting personal information online. It would not take long for someone to work out how to obtain these private details and use them inappropriately, as they always seem too!

phishing: the attempt to acquire sensitive, peronal information such as bank account details, by sending fake emails. For example, emails that look like they are from a reputable bank asking for account details.

pharming: is a scam in which a code is installed on their computer and users are misdirected to fraudulent websites. I have experienced this where I have typed in a web address, and the address was automatically changed everytime I typed it in, sending me to a different site.

privacy invasion: Accessing someone's private information without their knowledge or consent.

identity theft: Someone pretending to be someone else by using their personal identity information, for example drivers licence, credit card information, usernames and passwords.