I’ve been involved in a large number of online communities…some professional, some recreational, and the one thing that has been standard across the board is the disassociation of reality and “cyber” reality.

I don’t believe that it is so much that teens, or adults, do not invest themselves in their online identities…they often invest more than they do in their own lives. The power they feel by stepping into the shoes of their online personality magnifies if they can be more than one person, or if they can get away with something by simply ceasing to exist, and reappearing as someone else.

I can imagine the nightmare this provides to statisticians, but on the other hand…most uses of statistics are questionable in any case. I don’t see a way in the near future of controlling the identity dumping and jumping unless you are involved in a community where the members are likely to interact in the real world as well as online, and are “known” in some way other than their nicknames.

DNW