Michael Oswalt
Haverford College
May, 2000
Three hypotheses positing divergent psychological
mechanisms underlying human interaction within cyberspace and in relation to the
self - Turkle's theory of multiplicity, Talbott's notion of automaticity, and
the reapplication of Marcuse's term, non repressive sublimation -- were
considered with respect to the computer gaming population. Issues of gender, addiction, aggression, and
age were also investigated. Subjects were recruited through Internet discussion
groups according to their interest in the three games (genres) of investigation:
Quake (First Person Action), Everquest (Role Playing), Starcraft (Real Time Strategy). Subjects in each category completed an on-line
questionnaire regarding descriptive and personality data, gaming proclivities,
the within and out of game subjective experience, and gaming motivations. It was predicted that the psychic process of
greatest import while gaming related to non repressive sublimation. In addition, a specific personality rubric was
thought to correspond with each gaming population. A carthartic effect in
relation to aggression was also hypothesized along with the presence of a strong
association between high levels of gaming and auxiliary addictive behaviors.
Females were predicted to be less numerous and embody unique personality
characteristics. Age assumptions presumed a large inclusion of subjects acting
within Erikson's developmental stage of Identity versus Role Confusion. Results
suggested aspects of both role play and sublimation (of a repressive nature)
best described the mental processes at work while gaming. Personality, gender, and age hypotheses were
partially supported while addiction and aggression predictions were not. The findings are discussed in relation to the
"self". Future research in this area must
pay particular attention to the multifaceted interaction between personality and
the context of cyberspace, seriously considering the existential impact of
virtual experiences on the self of the physical realm.
There was a time when the term "cyberspace" had a single connotation -- that of the vividly futuristic virtual worlds described in the annals of various tales of science fiction. Today, however, what was formerly a prime example of esoteric jargon to all but a few is a concept of great significance to anyone who owns a computer. In his book, Neuromancer, William Gibson's fictional conception of a simulated technological web of information linking social, economic, and civic establishments has now been grounded and encapsulated by a desktop machine commandeered not by sleek, dark, computer hackers replete with body sockets, but by one's neighbor, the local butcher, or a ten year old girl.
The realization of a tangible cyberspace has led to more varied and specific definitions of its components than the general picture painted by Gibson. The rise of the Internet, connecting hundreds of millions of computers around the world, allows for information exchanges of gigantic proportion. From electronic mail to chat rooms and bulletin boards, to the World Wide Web in all of its textual, graphic, and interactive splendor, cyberspace is experienced by almost all, and few who enter its matrix do not return again, somehow affected by its mysterious magnetism.
In its most broad sense, cyberspace can also be defined to include the electronic world of video games, driven either by a home computer or based on a video game playing console connected to a television, such as the Nintendo 64 or the Sony Playstation. In some cases, this sweeping conception of cyberspace is not a stretch. For instance, the game Starcraft is a computer based game played against opponents over the Internet, and a large portion of the action is dictated by onscreen chat with other players in cyberspace (Blizzard Entertainment, 1997). At another extreme, the gaming experience of Goldeneye 007 is mediated only through the Nintendo64 gaming console, and opponents may only exist in a physical setting, playing side by side in the same room (Nintendo Inc., 1997). In both cases, the video game subject is intensely involved in the graphic and rapidly developing experience on the screen. Gibson himself once described his amazement while watching children play an arcade game:
"I could see in the physical intensity of their postures how rapt these kids were. . . you had this feedback loop, with photons coming off the screen into the kids' eyes, the neurons moving through their bodies, electrons moving through the computer. These kids clearly believed in the space these games projected." (Turkle, 1995, p. 265)
Indeed, as Sherry Turkle writes in her book, Life on the Screen, "video games carry ideas about a world one does not so much analyze as inhabit," and as one eighteen-year-old game enthusiast stated, "it doesn't feel so much like solving a puzzle as living in a puzzle." (1995, p. 68)
Thus, from a psychological standpoint, video games compose an important aspect of cyberspace to the extent that the intensely interactive capabilities of the game directly affect the conscious reality of the game player. As Eugene Provenzo, author of Video Kids, maintains, one must be aware of the nonneutral aspects of video games, as they are endowed with special and symbolic meanings, allowing one to ask why we are, and who we are (1991, p.139).
Furthermore, as recently reported by Greenfield and Cocking (1996), video games generally comprise a child's first and most frequent computer experience. Even before the advent of the personal computer, there was Pong, a primitive table-tennis game released by Atari in 1972[3] (Provenzo, 1991, p.8). In turn, as computers advanced, so did the games. And today, even in the sprawling and constantly expanding sphere of cyberspace, the video game is unchanged as a microcosm of the virtual realm. Thus, as the major vehicle for computer socialization and as a distillery for the psychologically salient aspects of greater cyberspace, the video game is an obvious choice as a subject of study to gain entry into the psychic and personality factors at play for the modern day cyber-frequenter.
From a psychological standpoint, little has been published with respect to theoretical aspects of the gaming experience. However, as a subset of sorts, the psychological salience of video gaming can be studied through an investigation of cyberspace as a whole and its relationship to the self. Accordingly, the interworkings of identity and cyberspace have recently become a hotbed for speculatory work, and such writings provide the fundamental foundation needed for serious treatment of the psychology of video games, as a function of the cyber-universe.
The seminal works within this emerging cannon are Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen, and Stephen Talbott's The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst. Both suggest that in relation to cyberspace, modernist notions of the self as a coherent and unitary entity are at best antiquated and at worst erroneous conceptions of identity, though they arrive at that conclusion through divergent avenues of thought.
Turkle first implores the reader to rethink the common sense notion that at base the human identity consists of a singular underlying process and unitary essence. Through a variety of observational reports and a plethora of personal statements from highly active computer users, she presents the argument that the computer, as the vehicle for a uniquely compelling "culture of simulation", exposes the self as a wholly postmodern entity - fluid, scattered, and decentered (1995, p.20).
More specifically, for Turkle, cyberspace has the capability to construct the user's senses of self through her own volition. Using Multi-User Domains (MUDs)[4], identity may be customly construed or invented as one writes, directs, and acts in one's own drama as "whoever you want to be…completely redefining yourself." (Turkle, 1995, p.184) The redefinition to which Turkle refers is clearly devoid of metaphor: "MUDs make possible the creation of an identity so fluid and multiple that it strains the limits of the notion ." (1995, p.12)
Alternatively, Turkle posits that the computer may also deconstruct the self by acquainting one with the undiscovered parts of one's identity lurking beneath the surface of the ego, discovering one's "inner diversity of being" (1995, p.256). States one user, "my ego becomes a hollow tube where many voices speak through." (Turkle, 1995, p.256) Indeed, Turkle explains that in freeing one from the constraints of physical reality, computers allow the user or game player to discover and play a self inhabiting a world where "objects fly, spin, accelerate, change shape and color, disappear and reappear." (1995, p. 66) Consequently, by allowing one to experience a world of dreamlike reality, all users have the key to unlock the variously desired identities hiding inside (Turkle, 1995, p.266).
In all, Turkle concludes that by allowing users the abilities to both invent and excavate parts of identity, cyberspace helps one discover a postmodern way of knowing. That is, just as one recognizes that the computer screen is merely a surface of simulations to be explored, one comes to see reality in a similar light. Cyberspace "blur[s] the boundaries between self and game, self and role, self and simulation…you are what you pretend to be…you are what you play." (Turkle, 1995, p. 192) Thus, she suggests that "this makes social knowledge into something that we might navigate much as we explore the Macintosh screen and its multiple layers of files and applications." (1995, p. 180)
In turn, MUD players, for example, come to realize that the conception of a unified self is simply one more synthetic reality. In MUDs, many selves are manipulated and none seem any less real than the socially constructed "real world self", for all can be played out and explored interactively. In a sense, for Turkle, the self of cyberspace is not simply an alternative model of identity, it culminates in an alternative lifestyle spanning both the real and virtual. Indeed, she contends that the postmodern self of cyberspace is a liberated self, opposing the modernist model of identity which "maintains its oneness by repressing all that does not fit. Thus censored, the illegitimate parts of the self are not accessible." (1995, p. 45) In contrast, a postmodern identity affirms that the decentered self does not require a hierarchical model of multiplicity - all notions of "I" are inclusive, valid, and most importantly, intensely real.
Turkle's argument gains needed potency from interviews with high-end computer and game users spending upwards of one hundred hours a week in cyberspace. Not only do their descriptions of self suggest a great disunity, it appears that their physical and cyber reality have become one. One user asserts that his time in front of the computer screen "is more real than my real life." (1995, p. 10) For another, physical reality is "just one more window," for, "after all, why grant such superior status to the self that has the body when the selves that don't have bodies are able to have different kinds of experiences." (1995, p.14) A final user posits that playing a video game involving creationism makes him feel, "like God," and that he is "addicted to flux…it is a complete escape…I can only relax if I see life as one more [game]." (1995, p.179)
Thus, for Turkle, computers represent a proactive entity that is a reflexive tool, acting both for the user and on the user, creating and unearthing multiple identities - "the obese can be slender, the beautiful plain, the nerdy sophisticated." (1995, p.12) This fluid, decentered self experiences roles not sequentially, as one in a physical setting might play a father in the morning and a banker in the afternoon, but in parallel, through different virtual windows, simultaneously a barbarian and a lover.
Stephen Talbott shares Turkle's view that the psychological saliency of cyberspace exists in its capacity to embrace and cultivate a postmodern aesthetic of identity in everyday life; the meaning of self is unstable and unknowable, for once defined it immediately changes. Talbott, however, views these technologically generated and essentialistically void identities as a serious danger, signaling an abdication of consciousness to a machine, and more fatalistically, that: "we will finally lose ourselves." (1995, p.10) For although Turkle acknowledges the potential hazards involved in such a model - her final chapter is entitled "Identity Crisis"- her overall tone is one of optimism. She is clearly hopeful that the simulation of community, and ultimately, identity, on the screen can lead to a new epistemology of self allowing one to "cultivate awareness of what stands behind our screen personae" in productive ways (1995, p.269). Talbott's divergent assessment is clarified when one investigates his formulation of how the singular self becomes inherently multiple.
For Talbott, much of the cyberspace appeal is borne of a misguided ideal that cyberspace is clean, entirely conceptual, ungrounded and thus uncontaminated (1995, p.9). As a result, theorists like Turkle are swept away by unfounded sanguinity, believing, as one user states:
"We will all be free to conduct our lives as we each see fit. For the first time in human history, rapacious societies will no longer have the power to make war on their neighbors…cryptography for the masses will guarantee a universal right of privacy; the Net prevents social coercion and conflict, and what is best in cyberspace always survives, while the inferior withers away." (Talbott, 1995, p.3)
In turn, Talbott argues that this unrealistic optimism is primarily linked to a dangerous abstraction in which inner qualities of humanity disappear into mechanisms. As a result, life in cyberspace is grounded in a "barely intended logic, contaminated by wishes and tendencies we prefer not to acknowledge." (Talbott, 1995, p.2) He writes that what Turkle terms "life on the screen" is in actuality on the margins of awareness, linked with instinctual urges, and as such, behaviorally automatic (1995, p.2,3).
Examples of this automation involve notions that the computer entices one to carry out business and social responsibilities without consciously being present. This includes emails "dashed off, without a second thought" and the "universal habit of scanning induced by the Net, forcing a superficial, abstract, associational reading of disjointed texts." (1995, p. 7) In total, no time is left for self-reflection, and abstract representations of human interaction create identities in which "the head has been severed from heart and will…the head runs on by itself - automatically, according to its insulated logic - controlled by subterranean impulses of the heart [one] can never be fully aware of." (1995, p. 12) Therefore, the self is fundamentally split, unaware that its actions are no longer under conscious control, in actuality driven by instinctual forces fostered by the pull of automation. And in Talbott's terms, "the correlate of automation is the scattered self."(1995, p. 4)
Thus, Turkle and Talbott arrive at similar conclusions regarding the effect of cyberspace on identity through differing theoretical avenues. For Turkle, the decentered self emerges through intensely real shiftings of roles and personae, while for Talbott, the incoherency arises through a process of enticed automation, leading to actions controlled by unacknowledged forces, yet nevertheless believed to be conscious by the user. In conclusion, Turkle's notion of the shattered self is easily viewed as potentially fruitful for the inhabitant of cyberspace. Through life on the screen a user may explore or construct parts of her identity by way of virtual roles she would otherwise be unable to manipulate, gaining realistic self-knowledge to apply in all areas of existence[5]. Conversely, the scattered self described by Talbott is one of utter unawareness, driven by forces beyond one's control, thus inapplicable to any sort self-betterment.
The extent to which these two theories may be reconciled is of obvious import, as their consequences are diametrically opposed. Unfortunately, Turkle's thesis lacks explanatory depth, while Talbott's suppositions beg further investigation.
In the main, Turkle's book is driven by its vivid descriptions of "life on the screen", no doubt an important first step in fleshing out the psychological aspects of cyberspace. In doing so, however, she neglects to provide a serious causal account relating the explicit components at play that would catalyze the postmodern reformulation of identity she suggests. The reader is left only with the notion that somehow the intense cycling of roles possible in cyberspace creates a recipe that highlights a neoconceptualiztion of a disunified self. Yet, the ingredients composing the recipe are obscure, and the reader is forced to question what is so implicitly powerful about cyberspace that it may fundamentally alter the identity realities of seemingly stable human beings.
In fact, taken alone, Turkle's largely depthless accounts of role playing in cyberspace, albeit amazingly new and existentially interesting, beg one to inquire the extent to which personality psychologists, social anthropologists, sociologists, and the like should take her work as a serious threat to a priori assumptions of identity. For, in one sense, one need look no further than early English literature to note that at least one dramatist had a clear understanding that "all the world's a stage."[6]
In more contemporary terms, sociologist Erving Goffman suggests that the "capacity to switch roles [is] predicted…everyone apparently can do it." (1990, p.78) In describing the disposition of the tyrannical businessman morphing into a loving and tender father at home, the more numerous British public school accents than public school graduates, and the common housewife who enters a beauty parlor in order to be called, "Madam", Goffman posits that the dissociated self is a already a natural and inevitable occurrence (1990, p. 156).[7] Moreover, Goffman asserts that "there are many individuals who sincerely believe that the definition of the role they habitually project is the real reality", and objectively, there is no reason to believe that a projected self is any more real than any other aspect of self (1990, p.77).
Thus, it might be argued that Turkle has simply uprooted the Goffmanesque notion of self presentation in everyday life and replanted its components in cyberspace. The context has been altered, but her disregard of any concrete psychological mechanisms at play while enmeshed in cyberspace leaves little fodder for subsequent research. Description does not imply explanation.
In contrast, the Doomsday approach taken by Talbott includes a variety of provocative statements in need of sensitive treatment. For Talbott does provide explanatory, albeit obscure, notions underlying the elements involved in the creation of a disunified self in cyberspace. As previously noted, he suggests that various computer applications and their correlates can elicit an unintentional logic of thought, permeated by wishes and instinctual desires from the periphery of awareness (Talbott, 1995, p.2,4). He posits that activity is enticed toward "passivity, automatism, and lowered consciousness," that one experiences life without "being all there." (1995, p. 7,8) Furthermore, one can never be aware of this automaticity driven by "subterranean impulses of [the] heart" (p.12) because Talbott contends that hundreds of years of tradition teaches us to ignore mechanisms of identity which are antagonistic to existing cultural values (1995, p.12).
With such statements framing the derivation of his argument, it is surprising Talbott does not explicitly acknowledge his so obviously psychoanalytic grammar. Notions of lowered consciousness leading to an instinctual automaticity of behavior, ideas of an unintentional, confusing logic of thought, and of a socializing mechanism in civilization prodding humankind to ignore inherent parts of self are all concepts saturated by the hydraulic forces comprising a psychodymanic worldview.
Thus, it appears that Talbott, possibly reticent
to evoke the connotations associated with Freudiana, attempts to explain
interactions in cyberspace from a psychoanalytic framework without denoting it
as such. Psychodynamic processes, it
would seem, provide an amazingly rich foundation to investigate human-cyberspace
interactions, and might add needed depth to descriptive and vague arguments such
as those promulgated by Turkle and Talbott.
For all of her ungrounded narrations, Turkle admits
that cyberspace does "provide much grist for the mill of a psychodynamic
process." (1995, p.208) Others have been
more specific. Norman Holland, for
example, in a paper entitled "The Internet Regression", not unlike Talbott
suggests that in cyberspace humans revert to primitive behavioral acts
characterized by sex and aggression. He
offers a litany of examples of these acts, most falling under the categories of
flaming (typewritten rage) and sexcapades (e.g. gender-bending and sexual
harassment). In explanation, Holland posits that the computer facilitates a lack
of inhibition in the user. It comes to be
seen as an ideal friend, understanding the user fully, being faithful,
forgiving, and nonjudgmental, rewarding good behavior yet never punishing (1995,
p.3). Thus, as the computer becomes
personified, it provides ample fodder for the user to project both phallic (my
system is larger and more powerful than your system) and oral (feelings of
oceanic envelopment accounting for the loss of boundary between person and
machine) fantasies onto the screen (1995, p.3-6). In a sense, Holland states explicitly what
Talbott intimates: the unique effects that cyberspace exerts on the user can be
explained with a psychoanalytic lens.
However, it remains unclear why the realm of cyberspace in particular is so conducive to the notions of decreased awareness and increased automaticity. Additionally, it is important to delve deeper into the specific psychodynamics of regression at work while navigating cyberspace.
In response to the former, Talbott's decreased awareness and increased automaticity in cyberspace may be explained by the drastic shift in reality that takes place when one is mentally drawn into this arena. Few aspects of the physical world hold true in cyberspace, and in many ways this makes it an attractive arena for interpersonal and fantasy-like activity.
This is most apparent in regards to social interactions in cyberspace. For, as Erving Goffman explains, even seemingly frank personal encounters in the physical world of everyday life are subtly, yet stringently, constrained. According to theory posited in The Presentations of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman suggests that social interactions require the people involved to stage elaborate performances under the assumption that the inner desires and feelings of the true self must never be revealed, as they conflict with very definite socially defined roles. In the presence of others, a performer must embark on a special investigation to discover how the interaction should be defined, and as such, how each participant will agree to stage the encounter. In turn, a "working consensus" is borne out, delineating the scripts of each actor such that the delicate interactive structure protecting the roles of each will not be disturbed. Thus, social interaction in physical reality is no whimsical affair; it is a highly skilled exhibition of a manufactured self, so difficult that Goffman contends, "life is not much of a gamble, interaction is." (1990, p.45)
Additionally, Goffman posits that the chief director of our synthetic outward identities is society at large. The performer merely exists to "incorporate and exemplify the officially accredited values of the society." (1990, p.45) As a result, few actors are contented with the working consensus - it is not congruent with free will - and few avenues exist for expressing and acting out discontent with its supremacy.[8] Thus, Goffman contends humans are naturally seduced by areas of the social world known as the "backstage." The backstage is an agreed upon locale such that no interactive working consensus is necessary, within the deepest depths of formal restaurant's kitchen, for example. Sloppy posture, sub-standard speech, and open sexual remarks are freely acceptable in the backstage, as it is a unique area to relax the normal rules of interaction. True backstage areas are uncommon, but remain a necessary component of social life as a respite from the normal demands of interaction (Goffman, 1990, p.129).
In turn, the backstage can be viewed as a special forum for decreased behavioral awareness, lowered consciousness, and increased automaticity. And of note, taking into account the almost infinite potential for liberated behavior and interaction within cyberspace, this virtual world may be seen as the ultimate version of the backstage setting. No working consensus is ever needed, and the user must live up to a single set of social standards - her own. Thus, the potential for subverting the long indoctrinated rules of social interaction may entice users to enter cyberspace and use it like a backstage area, that is, as Talbott maintains, with little conscious thought given to their actions.
More importantly, the consequences of this state of lowered consciousness need clarification. The Holland piece posits that in resultant, behavior in cyberspace is regressive, that is, in psychoanalytic terms, relating back to earlier, more primitive states of desire in which one was not so reticent to express constitutional urges. This notion appears consistent with traditional Freudian logic, and utilizing such a dialectic allows for specific hypotheses regarding the effects that cyberspace might elicit in the user.
Freud, like Goffman, also maintains that existence in the social world implies a variety of behavioral inhibitions. In Civilization and its Discontents, however, he is much more explicit in his descriptions, explanations, and predictions regarding these constraints. For Freud, the existential human experience is inherently disastrous. Unhappiness, caused by bodily suffering, natural causes, and through our interrelations with others, is inevitable. The latter source is by far the most damaging to one's contentedness (1991, p.264).
The term "interrelations with others" is intentionally cryptic since it is meant to encompass such a wide range of social relations. At its base Freud points to the necessary overall social order created by civilization to coerce the innately barbarous tendencies of humankind into passive submission. Indeed, Freud is direct in his position that, "man is a wolf to man," for under no restraint, humans are beasts of primal proportions: careless, blinded by aggression, hostility, hate, and an insatiable desire for sex (1991, p.282)[9]. In consequence, the continuance of civilization depends upon the retardation of such urges, leaving humankind repressed, oppressed, and unhappy; we barter a sense of happiness for a sense of security, dooming the psyche to a perpetual state of malcontent.
The heart of this paradigm is the pleasure principle, as Freud first conceived: "we have no hesitation in assuming that the course taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the avoidance of unpleasure or a production of pleasure." (1991a, p.218) This conceptualization in bare form, however, proved theoretically problematic for Freud, as there appeared to be a few instances where mental events did not seem to be regulated by this model. Most notably, in traumatic neuroses, following the severe environmental stresses of war or natural disaster, grisly events from the past would reoccur in patients' dreams, productive of nothing but further anxiety (Freud, 1991a p.223). Additionally, Freud commonly noted that children often exhibited a compulsion to symbolically reenact past situations the child could not tolerate, re-invoking distress (1991a p.225).
As a result, in 1920 Freud published Beyond the Pleasure Principle, promulgating a notion of a universal human compulsion to repeat. Where the repetition dealt with situations of pleasure, the pleasure principle was congruous with the nascent theory. However, for cases such as traumatic neuroses, where the repetition seemed illogically directed toward unpleasure, Freud suggested the existence of a basic instinct of self-destruction - Thanatos, or the death instinct (1991a, p.244). The death instinct was defined as a drive commonly encountered in nature to reinstate the former state of affairs, but in this case, the ultimate aim was the return of organic or living matter to its unorganized state; life was seen as in constant preparation for death, with its own instinctual drive towards this end (Freud, 1991a p.244).
The notion of the death instinct would finalize Freud's quest to establish the instinctual life of humanity. With it, the libidinal conception was enlarged and magnified in order to maintain instinctual balance, renamed Eros or the life instinct (formerly called the self-preservation instinct), and included the dual desires for sex and survival (1991a, p.259).
Through all of the instinctual vicissitudes, at base the innate desire for pleasure coincides with the expiation of the most basic drives, sex (as a component of Eros) and aggression (Thantos directed externally). It is through the stunting of these specific forces that society inflicts its most detrimental effects on the individual. Along with the repression of the Oedipus Complex, the suppression of sexual and aggressive drives compose the diathesis for the eventual stresses of daily life which may catalyze a full-blown neurosis. For, in relation to the Golden Rule, staving off aggression, Freud states that, "nothing runs so strongly counter to the original nature of man". (1991, p.303) Additionally, Freud coins the construct of marital monogamy, obliterating our sexual nature, as "the most drastic mutilation which man's erotic life has in all time experienced"[10]. (1991, p.293)
As a result, humankind attempts to satisfy such passions through tame and erotically decharged avenues that are sanctioned by society. These cloaked escapades may take a variety of forms, often occurring in a backstage environment, or through useful work, such as a cardiologist unconsciously delighting in every slice of her scalpel. Freud denotes such activities "sublimations" or acts which "change both the aim and object of an instinct so that what was originally a sexual or aggressive instinct finds some achievement which is no longer sexual or aggressive but has a higher social valuation." (Brown, 1959, p.138)
Theorists comment that Freud is at best ambivalent regarding the use of sublimation, many suggesting that the concept represents a fundamental confusion in his theory (Brown, 1959, p.139). For, the overarching notion of sublimation is somewhat of an ideational conundrum. Freud posits two distinct forms of sublimation: one, that of higher intellectual work for the talented few, and two, manual labor for the masses. The second case accounts for the structural foundations of civilization. Unfortunately, even though each case allows for a partial escape from cultural repression, both instances turn centrally upon the deflection of a very specific visceral craving, thus both involve repression, and neither is ultimately therapeutic. Even Freud's detailed analysis of the life of Leonardo Da Vinci, a man of unparalleled intellectual accomplishment, concludes that his nearly perfect instances of sublimation are no match for the socially induced repression of instincts (Gay, 1989).
A decrease in the cultural state of repression, or the direct fulfillment of instincts, however, would result in a catastrophic return to nonculture, a reincarnation of cave times. As a result, Herbert Marcuse, in Eros and Civilization, investigates the potential for a manner of sublimation circumventing the repression inflicted by civilization without destroying its core establishments in the process. As defined by Marcuse, a non repressive sublimation would entail an "instinct not deflected from its aim; it is gratified in activities and relations that are not sexual or aggressive in the sense of organized genital sexuality and yet are libidinal and erotic." (1966, p.208) Thus, a non repressive sublimated urge must ultimately deny the individual the direct id impulse, yet in turn uncover an avenue for sexual or aggressive satisfaction so similar to the actual impulse that the desire is sated.
Marcuse discusses various models in which non repressive sublimation might exist. Platonic thought, for example, teaches that true knowledge of the spiritual and physical world can gratify all instinctual desires; spiritual procreation is as sexually gratifying as physical procreation (1966, p.211). Others, like Fourier, have insisted that a mutation of the construct of work might allow humans to fulfill socially useful work while concurrently releasing libidinal forces. That is, through the creation of sexually and aggressively charged occupations (1966, p.217).
In all, it is clear that Freud would have thought Marcuse's five attempts to unearth a non repressive form of sublimation utter blasphemy. All include the rather glaring stipulation that the sublimated act is greatly removed from the original impulse. Truly, in terms of instinctual impulses, Freud does not invoke hyperbole when he specifies that one's neighbor is a:
"sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture him, and to kill him." (1990, p.302)
Based on that description, it is unlikely Platonic knowledge or erotic work could satisfy any instinct fully.
Freud himself offers little help to Marcuse, never promulgating an adequate description of a society filled with both individual happiness and smoothly running civilized structures. That stated, there is at least vague evidence to suggest that the state of the individual in modern culture may be salvageable. At base, Marcuse maintains that the fact that the "reality principle[11] has to be reestablished continually… indicates that its triumph over the pleasure principle is never complete and not secure." (1966, p.15) Moreover, Freud contends that human progress tends toward a turning point in the nature of the instincts, and importantly, this change may occur at the height of civilization (1966, p.15).
What would constitute this societal apex is never clearly explicated, but there is reason to assume that its appearance might coincide with giant technological advance[12]. From a psychoanalytic perspective, it appears clear that on a broad level, technology is anathema to repression. Marcuse notes that, in theory, technology can reduce repression by decreasing working hours, accounting for an overall sense of timeless reality. Since timelessness is associated with the logic of the unconscious, advanced machinery might play a role in amplifying our awareness of it, partially fulfilling the major therapeutic goal of psychoanalysis. Ideally, technology might obliterate the necessity for work in any regard, tools taking the place of the laboring masses (1966, p.231).
Most directly, Norman Brown, a noted neoFreudian, makes a very potent claim, suggesting that it is specifically technology which plays the key causal role in mediating levels of individual repression through its ability to provoke projections from the unconscious: "cultures therefore differ from each other not in the content of the repressed - which consists always in the archetypal fantasies generated by the universal nature of human infancy - but in the various kinds and levels of the return of the repressed in projections made possible by various kinds and levels of… technology." (1959, p.171)
If Holland is correct in stating that humans regress to primitive periods of consciousness in cyberspace, if Talbott is accurate in his assumption that cyberspace behavior is automatic and grounded in instincts, and if humans do use cyberspace as somewhat of a "backroom" as described by Goffman, then a strong argument can be made that computers and video games are potent vehicles for sublimation. And judging from Turkle's accounts of heavy computer users experiencing a literal melding of physical and cyber reality, clearly, this is a very special and powerful form of sublimation.
An explanation of that fact must incorporate the notion of fantasy. Holland posits in his piece that humans project oral and phallic fantasies into cyberspace, yet, one need not be so specific in describing the dreamlike elements of cyberspace. When a young boy plays a hyperactive frog in a MUD, when a teenage girl enters a chatroom as a college male struggling with his sexuality, and when anyone enters the mysterious world of the video game Riven or the ragingly violent maze that composes the game Doom, she is clearly enveloped in fantasy.
In psychoanalytic terms, this is of strong import. For Freud, fantasy plays a key function in the mental health of the individual; it is the bridge yoking the deepest contents of the unconscious with the conscious experience, a partial reprieve from the repressive nature of society (Marcuse, 1966, p.141). It is a product of primary process, an illogical grammar of primal, instinctual thought normally disallowed by the ego, yet now experienced through lower awareness. Additionally, fantasies carry with them an "omnipotence of thoughts" such that the fantasizer can "neglect the distinction between [reality] and fantasy." (Freud, 1986, p.548) Thus, the "barely intended logic contaminated by wishes," suggested by Talbott, and the statements of Turkle's computer users who psychologically inhabit various cyberworlds, can be explained through this concept of fantasy.
Moreover, there appears to be a deep connection between those intensely involved in cyberspace and the psychoanalytic notion of the artist. For, the artist actively embodies a world of fantasy while creating her work. The artist practices what Marcuse coins "The Great Refusal", renouncing societal demands in return for a new world of her own created by their unconscious (1966, p.149). Thus, both the artist and the "cybercadet" live in worlds of fantasy, deconstructing and constructing parts of self. Users spending upwards of one hundred hours a week in cyberspace can also be seen as staging their own Great Refusal from the physical world. In addition, Brown describes the artist as "carry[ing] strange customs and demands, (1959, p.56) just as Turkle notes that video game players "participate in a form of esoteric knowledge…a closed world of references, cross-references, and code." (1995, p.67) In cyberspace, all can be artists, recreating the unconscious through virtual design.
In total, if it is granted that the dweller of cyberspace engages in a display of interactive and visible fantasy -- Turkle's users certainly do not view cyberspace as a mere tool or toy -- then cyberspace has granted users and gamers unbelievably vivid access to into their unconscious. For, in cyberspace, one may torture, mutilate, kill, and sexually exploit one's neighbor in virtual form, as Freud suggests our unconscious compels. In turn, psychoanalytic theory suggests that fantasies of this intense nature can create a psychical reality of sorts - instinctual urges are fulfilled directly as cyber-reality melds with physical reality, as Turkle has already described. As an ultimate result of this realistic fulfillment of sexual and aggressive drives, it is here posited that cyberspace, even in its currently nascent form, is the first ever concrete vehicle for non repressive sublimation. Fulfilling Marcuse's definition perfectly, the instinct is not deflected from its aim but gratified in activities that although are not sexual or aggressive in an organized, genital way, are nevertheless realistically libidinal and erotic.
The above logic can help reconcile much of what has been theorized regarding the self in cyberspace. For, if in fact cyberspace is a potential gateway into the unconscious through in-roads such as fantasy and a lack of social constraints, then in stunning fashion, the ego is acquainted with the id in very direct ways. In this sense, conscious thought touches and manipulates unconscious thought - the socially constructed and restrained self is introduced to the true inner unconscious self as instincts are released freely, thereby unifying the ego and the id, capturing a truly integrated identity. Thus, Talbott is correct in surmising that activity in cyberspace instinctual and controlled by previously unacknowledged wishes, Holland is accurate noting the regression to primitive behavior, and Turkle is exacting in suggesting that humans role play with different aspects of identity in cyberspace. However, Talbott and Turkle's conceptualization of a shattered or postmodern self is utterly misguided. For, by gaining access to the desires and activities of the unconscious, identity is fundamentally unified. In cyberspace, the users Turkle describes are not multiple actors, but are in fact typecast in their true role; they do not lose themselves, but find the one veritable self locked deep within - that of the unconscious self, with all of its Freudian connotations. In total, as was once encapsulated as the goal of all psychoanalytic treatment: "Where id was, there shall ego be." (Freud, 1991b) Thus, through a psychoanalytic reexamination, the theoretical conflict between the ideologies of Talbott and Turkle may be reconciled, and their conclusions reformulated.
In complete fairness to Turkle, her greatest error may simply exist in the misidentification of her subject population. For, the users she quotes are by and large not representative of the typical frequenter of cyberspace. Indeed, the current state of the frankly ungainly computer interface does not lend itself to the awesome psychodynamic revolution delineated here and experienced by the subjects in her book - most computer users, even relatively heavy cyberspace users, do not report the monumental melding of the virtual and the physical as delineated in Life on the Screen, though, granted, as the interface improves, this phenomenon may become more common. In this regard, many of those quoted in Life on the Screen lie at the extreme end of a continuum of intensity of cyberspace involvement - they are unique and anomalous in their ability to use cyberspace directly as a way to fulfill psychodynamic needs, due in great part to the role of fantasy.
By missing this point of great psychoanalytic significance, Turkle fundamentally errors by ascribing postmodern grammar to notions of identity and the self, stating, "life on the screen is without origin and foundation" (1995, p.47), when in fact, as is postulated here, through fantasy, life on the screen originates from the most primal, essential, and axiomatic foundation of self -- the unconscious.
Of key issue here is the fact that Turkle contends the psychologically ameliorative qualities of cyberspace are accessed via intense and realistic role playing. This may be entirely true, yet it seems clear her subject population has patently outstretched what could be realistically expected to be psychologically gained out of mere role playing - a more detailed therapeutic hypothesis has been promulgated here. Instead, Turkle's conception may be germane to more typical users of cyberspace, those users who frequently enter MUDs, play video games, and interact in chat rooms, yet do so for twenty or thirty hours a week instead of over one hundred. These moderate users are intimately involved in their on-line activities, yet do not claim their virtual windows are more real than their physical counterparts. Instead, they use cyberspace to invent a variety of alternate and existentially helpful and healthy core selves, integrating them into their real world lives. They are able to try out divergent personae in the world of the virtual, becoming someone they cannot be in real life. Alternatively, they may practice parts of their identity that are constrained in the physical world. For numerous reasons, perhaps an inability to reach the unconscious by internalizing a fantasy completely, or simply being unable to break free entirely from societal constraints, they have not reached a level of non repressive sublimation, and their experiences are less therapeutic in a psychoanalytic sense -- instead these users mirror the kinds of experiences Turkle describes.
Life on the Screen serves a solid foundation for unearthing a typical user relationship with cyberspace[13], yet lacks explanatory and descriptive depth in the cases of extremely heavy users, such as those included within its pages, and critically analyzed here.
In no instance does cyberspace play a more salient role in the development of the individual than during adolescence[14]. And clearly, as the video game market has ballooned into a multi-billion dollar industry through the marketing of products directed at this single population, it is important to understand from an adolescent theory standpoint why so many adolescents have such intense relationships with this aspect of cyberspace.
An obvious starting point is the work of Erik Erikson, a noted psychosocial developmental theorist. Erikson conceives that the perpetual growth of identity occurs as a life-long series of eight stages. Each stage is marked by a particular psychosocial crisis the individual must overcome to gain the necessary tools to be able to effectively cope with the subsequent challenge. If the crisis is not vanquished, later on the individual will face the possibility of serious psychological impairment (Erikson, 1950).
The psychosocial crisis facing the developing adolescent is one of identity versus role confusion. Faced with the massive physiological changes of puberty, in combination with the realization that adulthood is on the horizon, the adolescent must reevaluate the self by accepting or rejecting aspects which had become part of the self schema during childhood, playing out new roles through experimentation, in turn creating a uniquely integrated identity concept (Erikson, 1950, p.261)
Clearly, this is no minor process. The nascent adolescent must "refight many of the battles of earlier years…integrating all identifications with the vicissitudes of the libido, with the aptitudes developed out of endowment, and with the opportunities offered in social roles." (Erikson, 1950, p.261) If the individual emerges unscathed from this excavation and construction of self, she will be "at home in [her] body, [having] a sense of knowing where [she] is going, and an inner assuredness of anticipated recognition." (Erikson, 1968, p.165)
Role of Technology in Adolescence
There is much evidence to suggest that cyberspace may play a large role in this important integrative process. For one, Erikson gives reason to believe that youths will actively seek out forms of technology to help them negotiate this crisis. He states that adolescents will utilize self-chosen therapies to help them unify a sense of self, and often, those therapies are technologically grounded (1968, p.131). For, what is exciting and attractive to the youth is the "technological trend seemingly promising all that youthful vitality could ask for." (Erikson, 1968, p. 129) That youthful vitality, asserts Erikson, will follow whatever gives free scope and imagination to their aspirations (p.129), and following, "adolescence is least stormy in that segment of youth which is gifted and well trained in the pursuit of expanding technological trends." (1969, p. 130) Surely, few technological achievements expand as quickly or offer the breadth of imaginative possibilities as does cyberspace.
Secondly, it appears cyberspace may offer a unique outlet to ameliorate a seeming contradiction in theory in this stage of development, and thus would be an attractive playspace. For, Erikson maintains that a critical aspect of adolescent development is the psychosocial moratorium, a time in which society grants the young adult a period of delay, such that she is free to experiment with a variety of roles, finding a unique niche both in terms of the surrounding culture and within herself (1968, p.157). Erikson's description of the moratorium connotes a fluid play space involving "free role experimentation", "a delay of adult commitments", and "provocative playfulness"(1968, p. 157). However, a close investigation reveals that very little of the adolescent's development in this stage is not directly mediated by societal constraints and expectations - a notion directly reminiscent of the work of both Freud and Goffman.
Indeed, Erikson posits that "social systems enter into the fiber of the next generation and attempt to absorb…their lifeblood." (1968, p. 134) Tentative apprenticeships and adventures within the moratorium are encouraged, but only if they are "in line with society's values" (1968, p.157). Moreover, the finalized identity realized by the youth must ultimately be a configuration of roles dependent upon acceptance by others; the degree of incorporation of the hierarchy of expectations thrust upon the youth in childhood will be tested at the conclusion of this moratorium (Erikson, 1968, p.159). Additionally, as Csikszentmihalyi suggests, society serves to structure consciousness during adolescence - the instincts, values, and habits of the youth must be shaped surreptitiously (1984, p.13).
The young adult who cannot negotiate this apparent contradiction of "restrained freedom" may fall into what Erikson coins a period of severe identity confusion, a pathology marked by identity diffusion, taking a number of forms. For example, a youth might experience problems in intimacy or have an inability to concentrate on work if she fails to achieve a relatively integrated and socially acceptable identity during this period. Additionally, she may take on a negative identity, repudiating the permissible identifications and roles presented by her family and greater society (1968, p.165-173).
With cyberspace, however, it becomes tenable that a youth might pass though the stage of identity versus role confusion while circumventing the paradoxical nature of the moratorium. For, cyberspace may serve as a developmental space of freedom from societal constraints, offering a novel moratorium for youth in which the process of "guided freedom" is bypassed. In cyberspace, identities and roles may be experimentally manipulated infinitely and with impunity - in Erikson's terms, the adolescent can be the "big boy" and the "little boy" at the same time, virtually and between windows, whereas in physical space such an impossible desire might lead to psychic turmoil and confusion (1968, p.160). As he notes, "man is a creature who desires to readjust himself and his environments according to his own inventions," one is reminded that a cyber-reality offers absolute freedom to readjust personal selves and environments (1968, p. 233).
Even still, this is not to say that the adolescent cyber-moratorium cannot ultimately also achieve the integrated identity Erikson believes is the ultimate goal of this stage. In fact, there is reason to believe that cyberspace serves as a powerful facilitator of this ultimate end, a notion vaguely predicted by Erikson a full twenty-five years prior to the public release of the Internet. For, Erikson admits quite bluntly that "only a tour de force" can integrate all of the roles one takes on during adolescence; surpassing this stage successfully, that is, with unity, is no small feat. More pointedly, he maintains that "the utopia of our own era predicts that man will be one species in one world, with a universal technological identity[15] to replace the illusory pseudo-identities which have divided him." (1968, p.241) With that profound statement, Erikson seems to foreshadow the advent of a technology capable of unifying the fundamental identities of all. In modern terms, one may take that premonition to suggest the coming of cyberspace, unifying the "pseudo-identities" of the moratorium into a distinct cyber-reality of a centered self.
Additionally, with adolescence comes the advent of sufficient cognitive capacity to allow the individual to make use of the integrative effects of cyberspace. From a Piagetian perspective, this stage of cognition is classed Formal Operations, characterized by the ability to "operate on operations". In more specific terms, three major capabilities arise: reasoning with abstract possibilities, hypothetico-deductive reasoning, and propositional thought (Bornstein and Lamb, 1999, p.283).
For, while the pre-adolescent of the previous, concrete-operational stage search for solutions to conceptual problems by manipulating existing data to formulate one real answer, formal-operational adolescents reverse the process, starting with many hypothetical solutions and progressing to a final accurate end. Thus, they operate within the realm of abstract possibility, bypassing the reality of the tangible.
Additionally, formal-operational thinkers can wrestle with conceptual problems with novel cognitive tools. Using hypothetico-deductive reasoning, adolescents of this stage can inspect given data, hypothesize a logically correct explanation, deduce whether it can occur in reality, and finally test that theory to see whether their predictions are tenable. The adolescent is able to repeat the process indefinately if any of the steps are incomplete, analyzing and reanalyzing potential obstacles which may have obviated a correct hypothesis (Flavell, Miller, & Miller, 1993).
Finally, propositional thought occurring under the auspices of formal operations marks a developmental advance over the propositional thinking of earlier years. The concrete operational individual utilizes intrapropositional thinking, considering propositions as single entities and testing each one individually against reality. In this manner she searches only for a factual relation between a single proposition and a single reality. The formal operational thinker, however, advances this process a step further, reasoning about the logical relations that exist between two or more propositions, a more abstract form of reasoning Piaget called interpropositional thought (Flavell, Miller, & Miller, 1993).
Although much of Piaget's critique of adolescent thought has been empirically discounted (see Fischer & Bidell, 1991; Gottfried, 1984), an adequate successor in the theoretical vein has not surfaced. As a result, Piagetian development still serves as a figurative benchmark in defining the thinking associated with the adolescent life stage of Identity versus Role Confusion. In general terms, the adolescent can now become engrossed in systematic theoretical speculation on such topics as the merits of a religious sect or a potential Congressional act. She has the skills to infer, predict, and idealize, able and willing to follow a belief to its ultimate conclusion, manipulating and toying with different abstract modes of thought (Solso, 1991, p.378).
These skills transform one's relationship with cyberspace. The ultimate unification of a sense of self, either through Erikson's notion of a fully integrated identity or through the close encounters with the unconscious as suggested here, must involve one's ability to transcend the phenomenal world and exist fluidly within the realm of the fantastic. Indeed, in order for video games or Web applications to have any trace of a reflexive effect, the user must have the capacity not only to think abstractly, but to be able to existentially enter the virtual worlds of cyberspace, which after all, are little more than Piagetian abstractions of potential realities - of a tangible nature. Formal operational thought allows the user to uproot the physical self and replace it with such iterations of virtual identities, capturing fantasy safely within cyberspace.
If cyberspace truly is the attractive and developmentally helpful entity purported here, those to which it is most alluring and beneficial, that is adolescents, will also be the individuals utilizing it. Although Peter Main of Nintendo of America has noted that video game marketing targets those aged 8 to 24, a range so wide it seems to be incorporating children and adults along with the adolescent population, (Provenzo, 1991, p.14) Erikson has asserted that as technology advances, the length of adolescence will also increase, thus that age range may in fact be coinciding with the modern day period of adolescence (1968, p. 128). In addition, Erikson suggests that as the experiences of the adolescent expand, the moratorium may continue up to age twenty-four or twenty-five (1968, p. 236). Certainly, the unique experiences available over cyberspace could have this lengthening effect, thus it does appear that the 8 to 24 game market targeted most heavily, may be corresponding with the current period of adolescence.
To this point, none of the presented theorists focus much concern on the role of gender in their area of exposition, each with varying rationales. Piaget utilized solely male subjects in his research, believing the results to extrapolate to the missing sex. Erikson's theory of identity highlights the masculine process in stating that the female finds her ultimate identity not by exploring the external world, pursuing beliefs and inner desires like the male, but by default as "whatever her work career" when she "commits herself to the love of a stranger and to the care to be given to his offspring." (1968, p. 283)
However, with regard to cyberspace, the great disparity between male and female usage requires a more detailed investigation into the antecedents of the situation. As recently as this year, just such an in-depth project was carried out by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), co-chaired by Sherry Turkle and Patricia Dennis (2000). Entitled, Tech Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age, the report expresses a great deal of concern regarding the ways most girls' relate to the present "computer culture", and reciprocally, how their relations contribute to stereotypes which assume females and computers are diametrically opposed. As an account from the report asserts, the computer itself is not the problem, but the fact that its use is encouraged through narrow and poorly defined avenues.
As a result, girls are channeled into computer applications which may be superficially useful, but are not indicative of true computer fluency. In all, the report stresses that much needs to be done to refocus the evolution of computer culture. For, females' relationship to the technology is not isolated to their gender but is symptomatic of a much more widespread paradigm in which many others are wrongly and negatively labeled as "computer-phobic", with unfortunate consequences.
"Girls have reservations about the computer culture—and with good reason. [They] are concerned about the passivity of their interactions with the computer as a "tool" and they dislike narrowly and technically focused programming classes. Too often, these concerns are dismissed as symptoms of anxiety or incompetence that will diminish once girls "catch up" with the technology. In some important ways, the computer culture would do well to catch up with the girls. In other words, girls are pointing to important deficits in the technology and the culture in which it is embedded that need to be integrated into our general thinking about computers and education. Indeed, girls' critiques resonate with the concerns of a much larger population of reticent users. Girls' legitimate concerns should focus our attention on changing the software, the way computer science is taught, and the goals we have for using computer technology."
More specifically, the world of video gaming is the key area of concern, because, as posited by Greenfield and Cocking (1996), video games are the entryway into greater cyberspace and computer usage as a whole. If females are not involved in video games, they may be the forgotten participants of the computer revolution, and more potently, lose out on the potential effects of cyberspace on the self.
Much has been hypothesized and researched regarding the sex disparity in the gaming industry. In quantitative terms, Kubey and Larson (1990) reported that eighty-six percent of video game playing among nine to sixteen-year-olds was done by boys, and Kinder (1996) found that ninety percent of the burgeoning video game magazine market was composed of male readers.
In response, Brown et al. (1997) assert that the sex differences are due to the stereotypically masculine way video games are viewed by both boys and girls, making them inconsistent with females' gender schemas, and as a result, less interesting, less rewarding, and possibly threatening. Accordingly, Nelson and Cooper (1989) overwhelmingly found that both boys and girls fundamentally believed that video games were a solely male domain. More recently, a study by Funk and Buchman (1996) on fourth and fifth graders' perceptions of video games reported that significantly more boys than girls agreed with the statements: "if a boy doesn't like video games, he's not very cool", and "popular boys usually play video games." More pointedly, almost seventy percent of both sexes agreed that a girl could not be popular and also play video games. Thus, the authors concluded that children evaluate the acceptability of game playing in congruence with common gender stereotypes, and when these stereotypes are accepted, social pressure works against the violation of resulting social norms.
Matina Horner (1970) has studied such a model and labels the barrier that exists for women to act in stereotypically male areas the "motive to avoid success". She suggests that in such an arena, social rejection, estrangement, and a loss of femininity will follow achievement by a woman. As a result, the activity of all women in that area will be inhibited and only reactivated if social acceptability is later stressed. Her paradigm is borne out empirically by verbal TAT studies (Horner, 1968). When presented with the cue, "After first-term finals, Anne finds herself at the top of her medical school class," almost seventy percent of the female subjects exhibited a fear of success by formulating stories for Anne involving subsequent social rejection, her lack of femininity and attractiveness, and Anne's dishonorable road to the head of the class. Not surprisingly, therefore, in relation to video games, Funk and Buchman (1986) report that increases in girls' video game proficiency and playing time was negatively correlated with self-esteem and positive self-concept.
Secondly, Brown et al. (1997) also suggest that the video game gender discrepancy may be due to the inability of women to connect with, be interested in, and find rewarding the themes permeating almost the entire video game market. In short, Provenzo notes that the themes prevalent in video games amplify anti-women values, specifically, dependency upon men, female victimization, and characters acted upon, rather than initiating action (1991, p.116).
These themes are easily observed. In 1991, Provenzo studied the forty-seven most popular video games on the commercial market for thematic consistencies. Of the forty-seven game covers, 115 male and nine female characters were identified, a ratio of almost fourteen to one. Twenty of the males and none of the females were in dominant poses, in fact, a third of the females were pictured in submissive positions in relation to other males, for instance being captured from behind or carried in a man's arms. A full thirty percent of the games contained scenarios in which women were kidnapped or had to be rescued as the major objective of the game, an astounding fact considering eleven of the forty-seven games were sports related. In no instance did a man ever need to be rescued or aided by a female character. More potently, the female characters that were existent in the video games studied were hardly positive female role models. Provenzo describes this scene on the cover of the Nintendo game Double Dragon II:
"the game portrays Marian, Billy's kidnapped girlfriend, clutching him as he supports her with his hand wrapped around the small of her back. His other arm is entwined with a whip that he is tearing out of the hands of a woman who has enormous breasts and a punk "rooster crest" hairdo. Marian is wearing high heels, her mini-dress in shreds, showing the curvaceous shape of her thighs and buttocks. Her tank top is ripped at the bottom, revealing her midriff and her gently sloping breasts, which are pressed against Billy's muscular chest. Her facial expression exudes an air of determination as she is held in the arms of her savior Billy." (1991, p. 104)
Even the recent attempts to create strong female protagonists in video games, for instance Lara Croft in the game Tombraider, reach farcical proportions as the women seem to be designed to look like men with breasts. Notes Michelle Goulet, a webeditor for Game Girlz, a site devoted to female gamers, "Respecting the female characters is hard when they look like strippers with guns and seem to be nothing more than an erection waiting to happen." (Cassell, 1998, p.341)
Indeed, it is clear game marketers cater to a single gender. States Lee Caraher, president of Sega Inc., a major video game manufacturer: "we don't do any girl marketing...I haven't seen a girls' game out there yet." (Cassell, 1998, p.194) In turn, most video games focus on a single theme: violence. Of the forty-seven games studied by Provenzo, only seven did not have violence as their major theme. Many of the games went to great lengths to incorporate violence in normally illogical manners. For instance, in the hockey game, Blades of Steel, the player is penalized for not fighting during play - it seems here the sports of boxing and hockey have been surrepticiously melded (1991, p.126-127) Moreover, the games of recent years seem to focus on more intensely realistic and aggressive themes than ever before. Recent additions to the gaming cannon include the game Postal (Running with Scissors Inc.) in which one plays a disgruntled postal worker returning for bloody revenge at a company meeting, and the game Blood (GT Interactive) which ran an ad in the May 1997 issue of "Computer Gaming World" picturing only a bathtub of blood.
Much empirical evidence supports the fact that violence in video games is antithetical to the desires of women. Malone (1981) found that girls did not like a video game when an aggressive fantasy theme was added to it compared to the same game without the violence, whereas the opposite effect was found for boys. Malone also reported that girls found the violence in video games to be boring and requiring no thought, thus unappealing. Physiologically, Cooper et al. (1990) wrote that girls reported significant stress in response to games with themes of shooting and killing. More generally, in 1979, Ahlgren and Johnson found that girls enjoyed activities involving cooperation, and not aggression, a desire running contrary to the entire gaming industry. That notion is supported by Gilligan (1982, p.10) who observed that in play situations girls will most often subordinate the game for the continuance of the relationships of those involved - aggression never takes precedence over cooperation. Moreover, a remarkable study by Kafai (1996) had boys and girls create their "perfect video game." Kafai reported that the games girls' created were most likely to involve turn taking, to utilize verbal skills in cooperative formats, and to take place in a familiar setting, focusing on realistic goals. Boys, however, created games which involved fantasy settings and characters taken from films and other media (such as Darth Vadar) performing aggressive, habitual, rote actions. Kafai concluded that girls' games focused largely on the destination of the game, while boys' version focused more on the journey toward the goal. It appeared that girls wanted to make social and emotional discoveries they could apply to their sense of self and to real world settings.
Unfortunately, few games incorporate the aspects which Kafai's study would suggest would make games appealing to girls. Provenzo posits that a major deficiency in most modern games is their utter lack of social and relational realism - characters seldom interact on anything more than a pre-scripted level. Even the two most popular products for girls in recent years, Barbie Fashion Designer and McKenzie & Company, focus respectively on getting dressed up and procuring a boyfriend, thus are not really even video games. According to Kinder (1996), the game industry has equated action and enjoyment with violence, and therefore games lacking aggression are not even researched for production. As a result, a psychological paradox exists whereby game manufactures are unable to create "girl games" without catering to radical gender stereotypes, for instance games with backgrounds consisting only of pink flowers[16]. Such games have not taken hold according to any gaming demographic (Cassell, 1998, p.73).
Thus, with the current state of video games, it seems clear why this aspect of cyberspace is off-limits to most females. It appears that just as Carol Gilligan has asserted that psychology has silenced the truth of women's experience, a "territory where violence is rare and relationships appear safe (1982, p.62)", the video gaming industry has silenced women once again, this time in relation to the cyberspace experience by creating a technological territory where violence is ubiquitous and relationships are nonexistent, in turn shunning this important socialization into cyberspace.
Perhaps more importantly, Provenzo cautions that if gaming industry does not alter the themes in games that are currently prevalent, deleterious developmental effects on girls could follow, for, "images formed from mediated percepts become part of woman's conception of herself." (1991, p.100) More generally, he chides that "video games and their content represent symbolic universes that are spontaneously consented to by the general population; [they] are instrumentalities through which the child's understanding of her culture is mediated." (1991, p.100)
A third and final explanation for the video gaming gender discrepancy is that due either to practice or innate factors, females are less skilled or react in physiologically different ways towards video games, making them less rewarding (Brown et al., 1997). A Brown et al. study concluded that even when practice was controlled, on average males still performed better in a basic video game performance task. The experimenters also manipulated levels of anxiety by allowing a variety of audience members in the playing area, yet the results never deviated. Brown et al. suggested that the generally better spatial ability and perceptual motor skills in males contributed largely to their results, for many (see Kuhlman & Beitel, 1991; McClurg & Chaille, 1987) have found that video game performance is highly correlated with perceptual and spatial acuity. In physiological terms, Murphy et al. (1988) reported that females exhibit greater blood pressure and heart rate while engaged in video game activities, and interestingly, Mazur et al. (1997) found that male testosterone levels increased prior to video game competition, and raised to an even greater level after a positive video game performance, while females testosterone levels decreased during all aspects of video game play, regardless of outcome. It is believed that testosterone is related to the desire to compete, thus males may be intrinsically greater pulled toward video game situations. In all, however, it is unclear why poor performance necessarily relates to an aversion to video game playing.
The above, however, is not to suggest that females who are intensely involved in the video gaming world do not exist. Such an assumption would constitute a great insult to the cadre of women who give life to the small but extremely active collection of video gaming web sites devoted solely to female game players. To be sure, these women are acutely aware their past-time of choice constitutes a marked minority group within cyberspace, but based on the content of sites such as GameGirlz (http