What do we do with this word, 'reality'?

So, I'm not writing a paper this week. Here's my post!

I asked the question in class this week about what we consider reality to be. I posed this to the Arab revolutionaries, the 'nerdfighers', the Female gamers and the Facebookers. The Arab revolutionaries made the distinction of having started this virtual, online place of discussion and then, meeting up in 'real life'. I do not think that this is particularly clear. When asked about this, I was given an answer along the lines of well, it isn't real because they didn't know each other online. But how do we 'know' each other?

The argument over whether someone really knows you by checking out your Facebook page has been made at so many discussions that I've had about Facebook. Is there a distinction between the physical self and the self that is portrayed online? On one hand, you could argue that whatever you put up on Facebook can be manipulated and present to an audience an image that is entirely different from your 'real' self. However, I feel as though this is a minority of people who have 'online personas'. The majority of us with Facebook accounts are who we are online and who we are in the 'real world'. I take my Facebook account as an example. According to Facebook, I've been a user since 2007. Curious to see what Facebook tells me about my identity, I stalked myself. I read comments made at the age of 15 and compared them to the comments that I make now. I see how different I look now versus three years ago. In my photo albums, I see how my friend groups have changed. What does this tell me? It tells me part of the story of my high school years. It tells me who I was, what I thought about an event/picture/person. It showed me at least part of what my 'real' reality was during the course of those years. I don't really think there is a line that has to be crossed between the virtual and the real worlds.

Of course you cannot discount the countless articles of older men posing as young studs in order to lure in young female prey. Nor can you ignore Sherry Turkle's article in which she writes about the large amount of people posing as the opposite gender online. However, I ask this question. In real life, does the 'real' person remain static in how they present themselves? I thought about it this way. In class and in meetings with professors, I like to think that I give off the impression that I am a good student - I listen in class, I pose questions, I do my homework. At rugby practices, I can get a little rowdier, yelling for the ball and running around in nothing but shorts and a tank top in 30 degree weather. In my dorm room, I mellow out, chatting with my roommate about how much we hate the world. Each of these different personas come together come together to make me, me. My 'real-life personas' are constantly changing - not everyone has the same impression of me. In fact, I remember after the Goodhart performances during hell week, PhreNic came up to me, tapped my rainbow coloured robe-clad shoulder and said "Wow, I didn't know you were wild!". I feel like this applies to the digital world too. On some websites (like say, LinkedIn), you are a professional. On Facebook, you're a little bit more comfortable (although this is arguable) to show people more about your personal life. In some cases, you get to change gender or age or your 'asl'. (Age, sex, location). Technology merely helps you change your identity more easily by providing a mask. In real life, it's a little difficult for an old man to pretend to be an attractive, young, hunk. Your identity, whether it be online or on the web is dynamic; that is, it is constantly changing.

I really feel like we should stop making this distinction between our online identities and the identities we have in 'real-life'. Given that our 'real-life' identities are in a state of flux and change depending on situation, mood and the others around us, I do not think that our online identities can be separated from us as they seem to be now. Rather, they are a part of us. Technology just makes it easier for us to come up with identities we could never have taken on without the internet and computers.