Sherry Turkle's essay "Identity Crisis" explores the advantages of role playing on the Internet. She claims that, when the different aspects of our personalities are given expression, we will gain a better understanding of our whole selves. Turkle acknowledges that each person is made up of many disparate personalities and that acting out one of these personalities is a healthy exercise. As expected, the examples provided of people engaging in this behavior are positive, leaving the reader with a warm and fuzzy feeling of resolution. In other words, her examples appear to present only one side of this issue.

My concerns would be about people who might confuse reality with fantasy, so that the two states blur and bleed into one another. Turkle warns readers, "Multiplicity is not acceptable if it means being confused to a point of immobility" (78). I agree that every personality has many dimensions and that the exploration of each could lead to improved self-understanding. I also agree that the world today is in a constant state of flux and that to succeed we must be "fluid." The most likely visitors to these sites are younger people who might better spend their time discovering who they are and what they are really about, rather than trying on different personalities.

This essay's target audience is young, college-educated, and computer savvy. Turkle's referrals to MUDs (Multi-User Domains) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) are lost on anyone who does not feel very comfortable interacting with a computer. However, her parallels drawn between psychoanalysis and adopting online personae would interest students of psychology, sociology, or philosophy, regardless of their proficiency level with computers. The whole concept of online role playing makes for interesting, sometimes disturbing, reading.

I am not completely comfortable with the idea of adopting an online persona. If an individual is attempting to work through a potentially traumatic event, perhaps the best way to do so would be with a trained counselor, not an unknown role playing stranger. I also object to any practice that has the potential to further desensitize people to reality. Technology is wonderful, and occasionally escaping the ordinariness of everyday life is warranted. However, the potential for dissociation looms too large to be ignored. Although Sherry Turkle does her best to present this information in a relatively unbiased manner, there is no doubt that she is an advocate of MUDs.

Turkle, Sherry. "Identity Crisis." CyberReader. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor J. Vitanza. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. 78-94.

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