Self and Cyberself Development

I was sitting on the couch one day when my 7yr old daughter Jillian ran past me into the restroom. Upon emerging she explained, "I had to go to the bathroom so I flew home and put a sleepy sign on my fairy. Because if there's a sleepy sign, nobody will try to talk to you." You see, she had been playing in the online world Pixie Hollow, which is sort of like a Second Life for kids.

These are virtual worlds, where people create avatars that allow them to maneuver the online landscapes, interact with other avatars, and engage in varying activities. They are not games, in the general sense of the word. You can play games in these worlds, but you can also just go sit under a tree and have a picnic with a friend. You can get a job in these worlds, and make money in their currency. Then you can go shopping, buy a house, design clothes, etc.

Watching her learn and grow with this cyberspace world in addition to our standard, "real" one has been very interesting. Take her statement to me about the bathroom, for example. We have our theories about how people develop their sense of self - how they learn to distinguish themselves from the people around them, to develop a generalized other, to distinguish self-as-subject from self-as-object. But what about self versus avatar? Where is that line and how do kids learn to maneuver it? In Jillian's statement about the restroom, she easily shifts self-perspective within the same sentence. She is both the human peeing in the bathroom and the fairy sleeping in her home in Pixie Hollow. Her avatar is a character she plays, but it is also her. And the other fairies are her friends.

In Pixie Hollow, the kids interact with one another mainly via chat. Pixie Hollow offers a set of standard phrases from which to choose, a fairly large collection of emoticons (with the meaning of the face helpfully included), and they can type in things to say, as well. They can "whisper" to other fairies they are friends with (private chat), or just say something to anyone in "hearing" distance.

By spending this time online, Jillian is also learning a whole new set of social norms. For example, one day she informed me that you have to turn caps lock on if you want the person to whom you're talking to know you're mad. I have no idea how she figured that one out. When I asked her, she said "it just is." Another day she was sitting at the computer and asked me "birb? what's birb?" I went over to her computer, and she had a chat window up, and the other fairy had just said "brb." So I told her, "Oh, that means 'be right back.' Your friend had to leave the computer for a second. You can type a 'k' right after that to let her know you got the message if you want."

This morning, I heard Jillian moving about in her bedroom. I peeked in, and she said "Oh hi. I'm just preparing for my quest." She was finding all her fairy dolls and lining them up. "I don't have Iridessa, though."

"Perhaps after school today we can use your giftcard from your birthday and go look for an Iridessa."

She thought for a second, and said "No. This quest I've been given is much more important than that. Rosetta lost her flowers, and she needs me to help her find them. We'll get an Iridessa later."