On Virtual Self In Internet

At the earliest age of the internet, people only took it as a new type of communicating tool, but this concept was changed with the development of technology. Nowadays, internet is not a single communication platform, besides online communication, it also provides information searching, online entertaining, virtual trading, etc, internet is creating a new type of world, the time of information and internet has come. In the virtual world, internet users can experience many fresh elements with virtual identity, during the process of the virtual interaction,a brand new style of self has been made, namely------virtual self.This article mainly focused on the study of virtual self by comparative, analytic and comprehensive way, pointed out that the key point is to explore the relationship among people and different worlds, real self and virtual self, the development of virtual self and environment.Though the virtual self appears in the virtual world, is not fabricated, the model comes from real world. The study of real self is vital both in philosophy and psychology, many scholars have spared no efforts to research it, including Descartes' answers about the question of "Who am I"; Kant's concept of self;"ego","ID" and "super ego" by Freud; Dr. James divided the real self into the "subjective self" and the "objective self"; Dr. Rogers considered that the self in real world is composed of "the real self" and the "ideal self". Prof. Shi Ronghua suggests that the self-consciousness is an advanced mental activity which is constructed by consciousness, emotion and awareness, with three systems contained, namely self-cognition, self-experience and self-control, etc. As the model is the real self, the construction of the virtual self also contains the similar contents which its model does, since the environment has changed, the property of the virtual self altered from the real one as well.The virtual world which created by internet has changed the relationship between people and the real world, study on virtual self reflects the relationship between the self of human and the environment we live. That is to say, in order to analyze virtual self, we have to take a look at the relationship between real self and real world, so that we can find out the similarity in the connection between virtual self and the virtual world.Virtual self is formed during the process of creating virtual character and communicating with this identity in internet, in some distance, the "ideal self", a perfection of real self, can be called as the early version of virtual self before the age of internet. Seeking good things is the nature of human, as we all hope the real world is perfect, since the fact is not as good as we expect and it's useless to change it by working hard, in this situation, self-contradictory mentality is formed. In order to compensate for the distance between reality and expectation, people created the "ideal world" and the "ideal self" in their mind so that the psychological needs can be met.The more we learn about the real self, the more complicated the ideal self is. In ancient Greek, study on human was mainly focused on the people's natural quality, as the ideal self at time also reflected the pursuit of the external perfection; In Middle Ages, the study on self-consciousness appeared, the "ideal self" became introspective. Different cultures shape different kind of ideal self, for example, in Chinese culture, the value of the ideal self can only been reflected in the "group self". Virtual self contains the quality of the ideal self, meanwhile, it also has its own property.Virtual self is the substantiation of the ideal self, internet users can create and control their ideal self in the virtual world. With the help of technology, virtual self also developed both in external and internal way, meanwhile, it brings some problems. The quality of virtual self makes the happiness more attractive from it, as to those who are not happy in real life, obtaining gratification by virtual self is a good way to cue their pains. Using it occasionally is fine, but take it as a long-term therapy will definitely lead to some problems:happiness acquired in virtual world may make the users begin to prefer their virtual self to the real self, it's ok to those who are strong in will, but how about those who are not? It may lead to Internet Addiction(IAD), meanwhile, it may have some negative influences on their sense of worth, world view, etc. It's not strange to see some one claim that the internet is a completely negative thing, as they miss the real reason.Studies on virtual self also proves that it has some positive effects, as it encourages the modification of ideal self, virtual cooperation improves the efficiency of team work, what is more significant, it enhances people's confidence in a group. Since virtual self uses our real self as model, and developed on the base of the ideal self, it's a good chance for us to observe our ideal self objectively, to see what will happen if we really become the one we want to be. If the result is positive, then we can take it and try to do the same thing in real life; if it's negative, it means we have learned lessons with little costs. As long as we treat our real self and virtual self properly, the latter one won't lead to the negative results, instead, it will help us to improve our real self.