Who am we?

The subjects of this blog entry are the answer to two questions:
1. What are the positive and negative impacts on the lives of the users of the MUDs from modifying their identities? and
2. Which is their real identity: their physical or their digital identity.
The answer to which should be gleaned from the article "Who Am We?" By Sherry Turkle

First, the Internet and all the games therein, (Sims, World of Warcraft, etc) allow people a certain anonymity. Online players can become anyone or anything that they want through the virtue of their profile. Did you want to be a heroic elf with the ability to cast infinite protection spells on your ogre thereby increasing his mana and making him invincible? Me either, but some people do.
In many ways this is positive. People can tap their creativity and express themselves in a forum that accepts them for it. Should someone run around the streets of Boston chanting threats in Klingon and talking about how their Dragon is the greatest dragon ever, people might look at them funny.
The negative to this end, is that people may naturally become so involved in their virtual world, or their on line life that they tend to avoid the real world. Given, the "real" world is a pain in the ass and no one is really happy anyway, it's not hard to see why people enjoy spending time living in their virtual worlds being who they want to be. It is easy to ignore and forget about the real world, making people who may already be introverts become even more detached from society.
Another downside to having the ability to change your identity is the "scumbag rule." That rule, created by me, states, that there are a lot of scumbags in the world, and any tricks they can pull to harm, fool, steal from, or abuse other people, they will make full use of. Having the ability to tell someone that you're whatever identity you've made simply allows criminals to trick good, arguably naive people into believing them and often wanting to meet them.
So which is their real identity: online or physical? Well, to be honest, I have to believe their real identity is their physical identity, but since life is often not what's true, but rather what you can prove, identity becomes whatever state the subject decides to exist in. If the subject carries on his or her online identity into their physical life, not only have they cracked, but they also have two "identities" now merged into one.