Personal Behavior - Online and IRL

[Gryffindorian]

I was reading this very interesting article yesterday. Dr. Aboujaoude is a psychiatrist at Stanford, specializing in compulsive behaviors.

Speaking for myself, I can only say that I don't have an "on-line personality." Or I should say, I'm the person I am in real life. My writing may be a bit different from the way I talk, and sometimes I do lose inhibitions and share TMI. But one thing I NEVER do is pretend to be someone else or someone I'm not.

Dr. Aboujaoude mentioned things like on-line gambling addiction or shopping obsession, but to me, such things are psychological behaviors that need to be addressed on a personal level rather than conditions brought on by Internet usage.

What say you?

 

[RoJoHen]

Yeah, I'm pretty much the same person online and in real life. Not really sure why I would waste my time being otherwise.

 

[Pingfah]

I'm much sexier and funnier in person.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I'm a complete arsehole IRL as well.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I'm more dour and incomprehensible IRL because text doesn't have an accent, and I have more time to think about what I'm typing than what I'm saying.

 

[Bears Discover Fire]

My RL grammar is better.

 

[Holdfast]

I sincerely doubt that anyone is the same IRL and online. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest if they were, that would speak of quite a rigid personality. After all, people are not the same in different RL contexts (work, home, socially, with partners, etc) depending on the setting and the people around them, so why should we expect them to be the same online? Equally, I would not expect people to be the same on all the different sites they visit. They will present a different set of facets everywhere they go.

Of course, there's likely to be an underlying core consistency, assuming there's not an attempt at deliberate deceit. But the idea that one can be the same online and offline strikes me as just as implausible as the idea that one can be same in all the different offline contexts we function in.

 

[An Officer]

I think I'm a little more amiable in RL. My colder side tends to come out a lot more online. I guess because I make less effort to be interesting/funny/sexy, especially here. Probably because I don't know most of you all that well. There are some people you just don't want to encourage.

So, I'd say, yes, I definitely have an online personality that differs somewhat from my RL personality. Some parts of myself are suppressed, others magnified... it's not the easiest medium through which to find the true measure of a person... although you can have certain hints over time.

As to the obsessive shopping, gambling, bullying... erm, nope, I don't think that's me, that's probably only a very small percentage of internet users, and they probably have pre-existing psychological problems, rather than something that is inspired by the internet alone.

 

[RoJoHen]

I sincerely doubt that anyone is the same IRL and online. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest if they were, that would speak of quite a rigid personality. After all, people are not the same in different RL contexts (work, home, socially, with partners, etc) depending on the setting and the people around them, so why should we expect them to be the same online?

I think there's a huge difference between being a different person in different contexts and simply behaving differently in different contexts. I'm the same guy wherever I go. I might be more polite or more professional or more laid back in different environments, but I'm still basically the same person.

You'll find me starting conversations about poop here just as easily as I would around my boss.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I'm more outgoing here on line, but i do try to get as close as possible.

 

[Chaos Descending]

I'm more outgoing here on line, but i do try to get as close as possible.

At least you're not trying to get me to share my pants pockets with you. Those are for MY use only. Store your stuff in your own pockets. In fact, put some damn pants on!

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

That's not what you told me last night!

 

[Spot's Meow]

I'm generally the same person at my core, but I come off different online because of the nature of the discussions and because some things just aren't conveyed well through text.

In real life I have a sense of humor about everything, and it can be rather dark and morbid at times. I find the humor in any situation, good or bad, and usually I will say some sarcastic remark that half the people in the room will take as a sincere comment, while the other half shoot me a keen glance and chuckle a little. I don't even bother trying to convey this type of humor online because it just doesn't work.

So I suppose that here, and other places I visit online, I come off as rather serious and solemn, when in real life it doesn't really feel that way. I also complain about a lot of things online that in real life I just keep my mouth shut about or let slide. It's just the nature of the internet that if you bring up an issue you have with something, it gets totally blown out of proportion and you find yourself discussing the minutiae of topics that you don't really even care about all that much in real life. For example, reading what I've written in past political threads here (way past, I've avoided any such discussions for years now) makes me sound like I sit around all day thinking of how to spread my liberal man-hating agenda, when in reality sexism rarely comes up as a topic in my life, and I am more apolitical than anything else. I spend my time thinking about crochet projects, historical events and objects, TV shows, and my boyfriend and cat.

 

[Jadzia]

The idea that one can be the same online and offline strikes me as just as implausible as the idea that one can be same in all the different offline contexts we function in.

For myself I think that context is determined by the person I'm talking to, my own/others mood, and by the nature of the conversation at the time, and not really from compartmentalising areas of my life.

So in that regard, the context I function in can vary as much within this forum as it does within any broader domain of life.

 

[BolianAuthor]

I sincerely doubt that anyone is the same IRL and online. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest if they were, that would speak of quite a rigid personality. After all, people are not the same in different RL contexts (work, home, socially, with partners, etc) depending on the setting and the people around them, so why should we expect them to be the same online? Equally, I would not expect people to be the same on all the different sites they visit. They will present a different set of facets everywhere they go.

Of course, there's likely to be an underlying core consistency, assuming there's not an attempt at deliberate deceit. But the idea that one can be the same online and offline strikes me as just as implausible as the idea that one can be same in all the different offline contexts we function in.

I actually AM pretty much the same in real life as I am online. The only difference, of course being that I'm not Adama, lol. But everything else is the same... I type how I speak, and say the same things online that I'd say in real life.

 

[Jenee]

I flirt less in real life, but only because real life people, for some strange reason, expect people to follow through.

The art of casual flirting had previously been lost, but with the advent of the internet, it is coming back.

 

[Nick086]

I guess it depend on the who the person is, There are agressive people on the internet and offline. There are few that are quite, shy, and non agressive offline, but once they are sitting at a computer table they turn into smart asses and they get agressive.

 

[LitmusDragon]

The article linked in the original post strikes me as extremely technology-phobic.

"The book is most effective when Aboujaoude uses his psychiatric insights to describe the five forces that assert themselves online: aggression, narcissism, grandiosity, immaturity and impulsivity."

Sounds like he's been sampling 4Chan as his baseline.

Wouldn't a person have to have these tendencies anyway in order for them to manifest?

"OMG! Communication is sliding backward, as well, the author warns. Rather than reading or watching "Hamlet," we're sending emoticons. And the dramatic rise in the popularity of video, computer and online games suggests an epidemic of Holden Caulfield-like juvenile "regressions.""

Wow ... so everyone who is currently posting OMG and WTF on Facebook would be reading Hamlet if it weren't for the Internet? Damn that dirty internet!

Also, the last sentence seems to suggest that he views all video games as being juvenile violence-orgies. A broad, fear-mongering generalization by someone who obviously knows very little about the subject.

Terrible article. No offence, Gryffindorian.

 

[Eyes]

I tend to be a little 'louder' online, but essentially, my personality's the same.

In real life I have a sense of humor about everything, and it can be rather dark and morbid at times. I find the humor in any situation, good or bad, and usually I will say some sarcastic remark that half the people in the room will take as a sincere comment, while the other half shoot me a keen glance and chuckle a little. I don't even bother trying to convey this type of humor online because it just doesn't work.

I have exactly the same type of humor, and I've had to adjust that online. It's not the same as it is in real life, but if I do it, the sarcasm is more exaggerated.

One thing I don't ever try to be is agressive, and while a lot of the things I say get me into trouble, I don't think any could be classed as agressive.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I'm more myself at the core online. I try and be socially acceptable IRL to a greater extent than I would bother with online. One thing I've noticed is that my online style has bled into my RL. Sometimes IRL I will ask leading questions, say something wildly inappropriate (but funny) or quote things at people who aren't the sort of people who quote things. In a forum you don't tailor what you say to the individual as much as you do IRL because lots of people are reading it. You might post some off the top of your head response which amuses some and annoys others, you know X will think you cold for it and Y will LOL at it. You post it because it amuses YOU. I've seen myself behaving like this IRL quite a lot in the last few years. In some ways it's a good way to attract people like minded. I met my mr. teacake on a forum years ago and we were attracted to our online styles which, since they were really our core personalities worked out well in an RL relationship.