Sherry Turkle - MUDs

MUDs

Turkle usually delves into MUD, or Multi-User Domain. Her book Life on the Screen composes of her thoroughly studying MUDs. She finds MUDs to be fulfilling for many users. "A MUD can become a context for discovering who one is and wishes to be. In this way, the games are laboratories for the construction of identity.”

Turkle lived in Boston and attended many pizza parties to carefully observe "MUDers." She discovered that people use virtual reality to act as if it were reality. Human behaviors such as romance are practiced in virtual reality. Spending a lot of time with these "MUDers," she realized how the Internet has become a modern day way of connecting to people. The Internet links millions of people and it has begun to dictate the way we think and learn. She is quoted as saying in Life on Screen, "Computer screens are the new location for our fantasies, both erotic and intellectual. We are using life on computer screens to become comfortable with new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, sexuality, politics, and identity." She goes on to discuss the closer relationship between humans and computers.

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