The Reality of Virtuality

Image from: http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/2093007/Facebook/

Narratives have been a significant part of human history for as long as we existed. Telling stories, through oral or written language, have shaped and continued cultures through time, served as entertaining and as informants.  Although the format of these narratives may have shifted over time, they still remain significant in our society.

The Australian Aboriginal outlook on the world and mankind is “shaped by a remarkable concept”, a narrative called The Dreaming, an oral narrative (Stanner, 1979, p.23). As identified by Chatwin (1987) to “understand the concept of the Dreaming you have to understand it as an Aboriginal equivalence of the first two chapters of Genesis…”. This shows how significant this narrative has been and still is in Aboriginal beliefs.

Self-narratives have become more and more popular as we shift to a more “me” focused and technological society.  Van Luyn (2013) suggests that like maps, self-narratives are “constructs for a particular purpose and context.”  My network in focus (Facebook) is primarily about sharing self-narratives with one another yet as Van Luyn (2013) identifies, “In a virtual network, you are not the only person constructing your identity,” as, “’… the software itself and other people are producing your online self.”  When you are constructing or editing your “About Me” section on Facebook, the format of the software dictates to the individual as to what is important for others to know about you. They prioritise things such as favourite movies, music, your relationship status, your education and workplace and this in turns shapes how we portray ourselves.

In a virtual network such as Facebook, our self-narratives are not only shaped by the software but by the people who we are friends with. McNeill (2012) noted that “users’ identities emerge in relation to those of their friends, with the activities and appearance of those friends affecting users' impressions of them” (p. 108). When writing statuses, people are aware of what those around them are doing and writing about and tend to write about things that will get them the most ‘likes’. It has become so important to people to have others ‘like’ their statuses that others even write blogs such as Patel’s ‘TheArt of Writing Great Facebook Status Updates’ to inform people how to write good statuses that others will like.