does modern society's influences create a need for virtual or written fictional identities and ideals

Rebecca Barrett
OUIL501
first draft

does modern society's influences create a need for virtual or written fictional identities and ideals

(Disclaimer: i am still to properly Harvard reference the quotes i have in this draft as well as add images and the analysis'. i have needed to take out a couple of paragraphs as rereading it they did not fit the theme and made it unnecessary to include them. the bibliography is still to be completed also, however i have all the information i need but i wish to further look into more suited references.)



society has frequently been believed to have some negative effects on people throughout history. however this piece will be looking into modern reasoning into the increasing feel, or need for people to create a new identity, creating a new life described as (freeing or exciting ) for themselves. the imagination has strongly been a great influence in written works of fiction ( such as Alice in wonder land and so on). someone needed to have created this from their heads, which means something would have lead them to create something that didn't exist for a reason of creating something that would interest people. showing that there has been an appeal of fiction for a long while. the idea that there could be something better and more exciting to life. the grass is greener on the other side, or possibly a side they can never physically reach.
escape can come in many forms, such as the form of words or visual stimulation. as visual stimulus is becoming more and more prominent way of communication, within education and around society, it is not surprising that video games and visual stories have become a larger part in retail and in many households.

a fictional identity is where a person adopts a new identity based around some ideas or ideals, possibly in a new world, in order to become someone else. as for the reasoning behind it, this can be from a verity of reasons. some of these been recorded are a result of an unfulfilled sense of self worth, boredom of everyday life, a lack of control, as well as other day to day events that take place in peoples lives. This will look at some of these reasons will be described in greater detailed, and shall explore the links and correlations between society and said reasons. examples of creating a new identity can come from the use of video games, written stories, visual stories such as movies as well as art or purely the imagination. video game allow you to create your own "avatar" or "champion" and become or follow a life that can be full of what can be seen as exciting events that would be impossible for the player to achieve in real life. as video games have been shown to have multiple effects to the consumer/player many studies to these theories effects have been studied. as mentioned earlier, there has been an intrigue in what doesn't exist for a very long term period of time, so the idea that someone that can imagine themselves into a fictional world can could potentially come from multiple reasons.

the causes of these needs to create a new, non existing life can come from multiple aspects. the most renown theories consist of childhood heroes and the idea of becoming like them through respect or general interest. "Scientists from the University of Essex found that giving players a new identity during a game, such as a different gender, or playing a hero or villain, made people feel better about themselves." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2022782/Video-gamers-play-adopt-new-identity-experience-superpowers.html, 2011)  however there are more taboo theories such as a result of having no sense of control in said persons life. so they would resort to a life where they can become someone of importance, someone with an impact on the world around them.
with capabilities of something that would be near impossible or indefinitely impossible to obtain from real life. by doing this they create a life full of control and no consequences for there actions linking to their real life. to the person they can become someone and do things they could never do, whilst still living in the society where their in-game choices have no effect.

in a modern society that says they wish to create a life where students can retrieve an education and have a larger chance of pursuing something they would like and enjoy in life, there is still massive limitations to these life choices. as schools teach students indirectly to compare themselves to each other through tests and exams, this idea of a self worth can fluctuate and become lessened, as well as potentially snowball creating a lesser sense of self over a course of time. from this it can even lead children to becoming docile bodies as they believe that they cant achieve anything or live up to a believed to be given standard, creating a need to replace aspects of their life with new possibilities.

however is it all purely based on chances of life events pushing people to this state of mind of is there another aspect of their life that could influence the choices? there is many studies into personality differences that could influence such decisions. studies show that there are correlations linking personality types with feeling a need to create identities, creating personality susceptibility

one of the main concerns of people distancing themselves from the world around them is that when it comes to survival they have a smaller chance of success if they have not been mentally prepared for particular aspects of life. such as job interviews and how to respond to people or how to act in a relationship. with these issues arising there is also the problem of responding to these problems negatively. thus sending the person in the situations into a spiral down, as they may retreat back to their other lives more and more as a comfort zone. somewhere where they feel safe and no one can harm them. this has evolved into quite a few stereotypes, such as the a cave dweller (where a child will spend all their time in there room (the cave), and rarely be seen participation in life events or activities). however this is not always a case if the individual maintains a healthy mix between the two forms of identities. in most cases the ability to do this is most frequent, as the secondary identity can become a release. whilst in other, less fortunate cases, the individual adopts the fictional identity as their main life, resulting in a recluse personality. 

this can cause an addiction, as well as these connections to game addiction there is more serious aspects to the term "Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has received nomenclatural recognition as a potential mental health disorder, despite evident variability in its core psychopathology and psychometric assessment"
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735814000658, 2014 )

on the other hand, not all effects of an adopted identity can be called negative. as studies have shown that playing video games especially can enhance imaginative skills. allowing people to bring their ideas from a perfect world into the real one. in creating work or imagery around the subject. furthering the imagination shared throughout societies. through people doing this, it can lead to a collective of people or gatherings where they get to express their love for particular games, books and other forms of escape. this can come in the forms of conventions, group gatherings, small societies ( such as at universities) and online groups. this creates a type social interactment that will allow people that could stay hidden in their chosen world to express how they feel with people in a similar place in life. as well as these gatherings there is also the matter of the ability to make friends. acknowledging that there is always a risk of talking or interacting with people over the internet, within the gaming community everyone is working towards a common goal and can create team building experiences and opportunities. "It was concluded that virtual gaming may allow players to express themselves in ways they may not feel comfortable doing in real life because of their appearance, gender, sexuality, and/or age." MMORPGs also offer a place where teamwork, encouragement, and fun can be experienced."
(http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2007.9988, 2007)

reasonings may be varied for been drawn into games, however there is a smaller reason for the increase in gaming that could be impacting the amount of people starting to play games in this modern age. as technology improves so will the interest drawn to it. over there last 20 years the progression in visuals and possibilities in games has advanced significantly. this has to be taken into consideration when looking into the statistics of why there has been a mass increase in people joining the gaming community. the visually has started bringing more people of the female gender which would be another factor to take into consideration. as graphics evolve there will be many different kinds of players of varied ages and gender identities. as these graphics have progressed significantly (especially over the last 10 years), this makes it very easy to make characters resemble you in features such as character creation. this can give you an emotional link to the character made, furthering your emersement within the game. "identification with a game character or role that is based on social–psychological models of self-perception" ((no date) http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1468-2885.2009.01347.x?r3_referer=wol&tracking_action=preview_click&show_checkout=1&purchase_referrer=onlinelibrary.wiley.com&purchase_site_license=LICENSE_DENIED) making it a highly personalised part of life. as well as the possibility to physically make it appear that the person is inside the virtual world, there is the beauty and realism within the game itself. things such as scenery and creatures have become so detailed it is possible to mistake still images within the game as genuine photos. this can attract people to keep playing the game as it resembles what it would look like if it was real so vividly. most times to a greater intensity of colour, so the world looks much more beautiful that they are attracted to it that bit more. 

infancy can play a strong part in establishing the role that imagination can play on the mind. as modern society has now become highly digitally based and this isn't an exception when it comes to entertaining children. from a young age they are exposed to games and television to distract them and keep them settled and happy. this means less social interactment with children their own age. this can form difficulties forming relationships because of the under exposure to others from such an important learning stage in life. however the levels of imagination have increased since this exposure to technology. as children's minds are opened to things that don't exist, and fantasies such as super heroes they then create idols. the effects these have on children can allow them to pretend to become someone from their favorite stories. for example you can prominently see this around halloween where the mass influx of young children dressing up as characters from the Disney movie Frozen. from such a young age children pretend to be characters with special abilities and powers. as the child gets older it then isn't as socially acceptable to dress as these fictional heroes and act like them in public. therefor a compromise allowing people to keep this illusion that they can be something stronger than what they are is required. this can be reading and playing games based in new worlds with new villains they need to overcome. from this we can establish that in some cases the act of playing the role of a hero can be the link they keep to their childhood. the feeling of the age where there was no consequences and major effects that could influence their lives. little worries about all the minor and major stresses modern society can and will cause.

from such an early state of adoledence the use of digital entertainment as a distraction as well as a form of social interactment. "each episode begins with Mickey looking into the camera and speaking directly to the viewer in tones of solicitous hyper-congeniality, pausing every so often to elicit a response as he cups his hand to his ear" (the world beyond your head). this shows that when a child is growing up they are given social interactment from virtual characters from an early age to account for the need children have accumulated for social and interactive needs.

overall the influences modern society has on the use of fictional existence and identities has multiple positive and negative aspects. however overall the influences have progressively been accumulating as technology and digital advancements are made, as well as the increase in social absences. the need to be around someone to talk to them has been significantly lessened to the point that you don't even need to be in the same country. therefor physical interactment has become something that less and less people feel the need to do. while this is happening peoples abilities to develop real life skills are been, un-knowingly, lowered to a lesser standard. so whist the attachment to adopted identities brings individuals a feeling of comfort and happiness, it can potentially make life harder in different aspects of their lives.

personality traits and game addiction - http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2009.0229

shape the world around them - https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ZRyQAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA197&dq=psychology+journals+on+lack+of+control+and+gaming&ots=-0xPrT794j&sig=9af_XRxC-lPwU6mkMzZ5cqsCEsA#v=onepage&q&f=false

game addiction - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735814000658

positive multiplayer - http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2007.9988

identify selp perception - http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1468-2885.2009.01347.x?r3_referer=wol&tracking_action=preview_click&show_checkout=1&purchase_referrer=onlinelibrary.wiley.com&purchase_site_license=LICENSE_DENIED ----______ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2009.01347.x/full