@KatieGullans
In “What is an Avatar?” by Coleman, she mentioned x-reality. It meant a cross reality of being in two places at once. She also mentioned how in second life, every character had perfect sculpted avatar bodies designed by the person in the way that they wanted them to be.(125) It can relate to facebook or twitter in that you can be any person you want to be there and it doesn’t have to be exactly how you are in real life. You may say things on online sites that you may not say out loud. You can even pretend to be a different person. I created two facebook characters to write a story for my digital storytelling class, telling a story about aliens and centaurs.
Media changes the user because it allows them to do things they couldn’t do in real life. In Sims, you can have them burn the house down and let their ghosts haunt you. But you know that that world isn’t real of course because a thief can’t steal a swimming pool and put it in their pocket. In facebook and twitter, you may interact with real people,(or fake people) but it still seems less of a real world than seeing someone in person. Some people may even be easier to talk with online because they have the time to think about what to say. Maybe it seems not as real because you can more easily walk away from the computer whenever you want to. Maybe these words are easier to say here because I can write them and leave this internet world. But I can’t give a presentation and just disappear.