PSYCHOLOGY OF CYBERSPACE FORUM ARCHIVE
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Anonymity online - how anonymous is it?
The participant formerly known as Tom · 01/07/01 at 11:16 PM ET
While doing some searching on the web, I came across a link to one of Dr. Suler's pages (www.rider.edu/users/suler/psycyber/acoa.html which includes: "Aspects of one's identity such as age, sex, race, education, all of which would be revealed automatically in a face-to-face meeting do not come through the computer unless you choose to reveal them (Seabrook, 1994). And on the Net, since people are not judged by their physical appearance, they are judged primarily by what they write (Seabrook, 1994). But, does one ever know if the person is telling them their true identity?" What degree of anonymity truly exists online? I also happened across an interesting paper by Susan Herring: "GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION:
In my own experience online, I've noted men and women generally have different online posting styles. It seems to me that other attritubes can be gleaned, over time, about posters--educational level, ethnicity, political/social views, etc. Many people are by now also saavy enough to identify a poster's ISP, if listed, which may indicate the area in which the person lives.
BRINGING FAMILIAR BAGGAGE TO THE NEW FRONTIER:"
www.cpsr.org/cpsr/gender/herring.txt
which posits:
"first, that women and men have recognizably different styles in posting to the Internet, contrary to the claim that CMC neutralizes distinctions of gender; and second, that women and men have different communicative ethics -- that is, they value different kinds of online interactions as appropriate and desirable."
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