The Virtual Ego: A Theoretical Discussion

We have formed the idea that in each individual there is a coherent organization of mental processes; and we call this his ego. It is to this ego that consciousness is attached; the ego controls the approaches to motility - that is, to the discharge of excitations into the external world; it is the mental agency which supervises all its own constituent processes, and which goes to sleep at night, though even then it exercises the censorship on dreams.

Sigmund Freud's words, first appearing in the 1923 edition of The Ego and the Id, clearly described the essential processes of the ego. Seventy-five years later the same words can be used to describe a psychotechnological construct called the virtual ego.

Consider the nature of "I" in cyberspace. "I" exists only when the computer or machine is turned on. Turn off the machine and "I" ceases to exist. "I", which is a multiple, dissociated phenomenon in cyberspace can exist only through the mediation of a computer. In other words, in the electronic environment one ceases to "be" without mechanistic intervention. Digital existence is totally dependent on cybernetics - the merging of living organism and machine. All netizens are, by definition, cyborgs.

Extrapolating Freud's ideas into internet concepts, one can define the virtual ego as a coherent organization of virtual processes. It is the psychotechnological structure that mediates the metaphor of virtual consciousness. Freud's description of the state of consciousness as "characteristically very transitory; an idea that is conscious now is no longer so a moment later, although it can become so again under certain conditions that are easily brought about", accurately depicts the virtual state of being. Virtual consciousness constantly shifts, postmodern identities are recycled through the click of a mouse, and digital environments are regularly reconstructed as the netizen moves through the morass of electronic geography. The metaphor is further strengthened by Freud's discussion of the ego as "the representative of the external world, of reality, reason". The ego exemplifies "reason and common sense", holding the passions of the id in abeyance. The super-ego balances it all, "ultimately reflect[ing] the contrast between what is real and what is psychical, between the external world and the internal world".

In a like manner, the virtual ego mediates between the psychical pressures of very un-virtual forces rooted in reality and the diminished virtual super ego. Clearly, the virtual ego presents an intriguing conundrum. M. Strangelove calls it the "uncensored self", observing that a new type of human being is emerging from computer-mediated communication. The uncensored self is characterized by its accessibility, its lack of individual or social censorship, the ability to indulge equally in synchronous or asynchronous communication, its involvement in mass participation, and its ability to be multi-directional. Consistent with these ideas, the virtual ego has often been viewed through psychodynamic constructs to understand and interpret human behavior in an electronic environment.

Essentially, the virtual ego is able to free associate in an environment that welcomes fantasy, dependency, removal of boundaries, and regression. The mediating entity - the computer -- functions as both parent and child; the netizen as both machine and human (cyborg); and the individual simultaneously enters and receives. Simply put, the computer becomes a virtual self-object serving the virtual ego.

In order to accomplish this, the computer is personified by the user. Consider the research by Scheibe and Erwin, conducted in 1979 before the World Wide Web and The Internet were widely available. Using forty male and female undergraduates, they investigated the tendency for subjects to personify computers. Subjects were instructed to play specific computer games while their spontaneous verbalizations were recorded. Scheibe and Erwin found that nearly two verbal comments per minute were made, with an average of nine pronoun references per subject. The most frequently used pronouns were "it", followed by "he", "you", and "they". They classified subject verbalization into four categories: direct remarks to the computer, exclamations (including expletives), commentaries, and questions. They concluded that people easily personify the computer -- casting it in a human role. "It is a mistake to regard the computer as a neutral agent in socialization" they wrote. ". . .One can envisage, then, the emergence of a personality type which is the human reciprocal of the computer as a component of the generalized other".

Similarly, Dr. Sherry Turkle (1995) wrote in Life on the Screen that "experimental studies of people and computers show that people don't want to insult a computer they have used 'to its face'". Perhaps the best example of computer personification was in ELIZA, a popular computer program first published in 1966. Joseph Weizenbaum, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, author of ELIZA, had written it to see how far the computer could go in emulating conversation. ELIZA was a "psychotherapist" who could answer "questions". Conceptually, the program was based on mirroring patient response to simulate standard English.

Technically, the program had two parts. The first part extracted information from the material typed into the program by the patient. The second part used a script that formulated an appropriate reply. Weizenbaum used Rogerian psychotherapy as a model to reflect statements back to the patient in an attempt to encourage continued communication. The program had no innate knowledge - it merely recognized strings of characters and turned them into a response.

The following is an example of an exchange on ELIZA:
Patient: I am angry
Eliza: How long have you been angry?
Patient: Six months
Eliza: Please go on
Patient: I lost my job
Eliza: Do you have other reasons not come to mind?
Patient: I was fired
Eliza: Why do you tell me you were fired right now?

Weizenbaum was dismayed at the responses. He believed that ELIZA's limitations would discourage people. Instead, the program was extremely popular. Psychiatrists contacted him for its potential in therapy. People became emotionally entangled with ELIZA, personifying her, often requesting to be "alone" with the program. Without intending its effect, Weizenbaum had encouraged people to accept machines as being capable of human understanding and compassion. "On an even deeper level," writes Turkle, "Weizenbaum felt that the culture as a whole was in the process of being diminished by its dependence on computers and the mode of thought embodied in them". As a refugee of Nazi Germany, Weizenbaum felt that the idea of people readily accepting the words of a computer psychotherapist reflected the same moral insensitivity that led to the Holocaust.

According to N. Holland "people almost instinctively think of computers as other people". He suggests that this blurring of boundaries between human and machine leads to "internet regression". This virtual regression begins with a series of fantasies people have about their computers. For example, computers foster fantasies of power and dominance. The machine expands brain power far beyond present conscious human capabilities. It is constantly growing, swelling with greater memory, greater speed, greater power. Holland likens this to the male phallic fantasies, suggesting that just as a driver identifies himself with the potency of his car, the computer "driver" can be aggressive and competitive in digital safety and anonymity. He notes that women "drivers", in cars and computers, think of their machines more as vehicles to be used rather than phallic competition. Perhaps this is why men seek to compete with bigger disks, enlarged memories and more potent chips.

Fantasies of power and dominance raise issues of object relations. Not surprisingly, Holland maintains that a persistent computer fantasy is the machine's role as "good enough" parent - awarding good behavior with a successful program, and bad behavior with a gentle "error" message. The child (user) is not "bad"; thus the computer waits patiently for another input to reward. Ultimately, the anonymous machines protects the child, offering an illusion of safety.

Byron Reeves, Ph.D. and Clifford Nass, Ph.D., media researchers in communications, concretize the virtual ego into a concept they call "the media equation." They suggest that media engages a brain that evolved in a pre-electronic world where only humans had the ability to maintain complex social behaviors. Simply put, the basic assumption is that whatever looks human and whatever acts human is, in fact, human. Generalizing the metaphor, the brain was designed to automatically assume that what appears real is real. This has effectively guided Homo Sapiens through two hundred thousand years of evolution. As we move into the new millennium we still use the designs of an old brain for negotiating daily life. The introduction of simulated humans in media continues to engage human brains designed for the old assumptions. "People can't always overcome the powerful assumption that mediated presentations are actual people and objects," writes Reeves and Nass. "There is no switch in the brain tt can be thrown to distinguish the real and mediated worlds". The end result, "the media equation - media equal real life - applies to everyone". Media simulates real life so well that automatically and unconsciously we respond in a social and natural manner. That is why a movie can be frightening, a sitcom can be funny and a news broadcast can be heart wrenching. Or a computer can be "he". Humans can think through this response and intellectually differentiate between what seems to be real and what is actually real. However, if the intellectual effort is not made to establish the differentiation, the automatic, natural response is to assume it's real. "We have found," Reeves and Nass conclude, "that individuals' interactions with computers, television, and new media are fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life".

List of References
Eliza [Online]
Available: http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza/eliza.html
[1997, March 31]. Freud, S. (1960).

The ego and the id
New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Holland, N. N. (1996).

The internet regression: Psychology of Cyberspace [Online]
Available: http://www.rider.edu/users/suler/psycyber/index.html
[1997, March 3]. Reeves, B. and Nass, C. (1996). 14 pp.

The media equation: How people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places.
Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Scheibe, K.E. and Erwin, M. (1979).
The computer as alter. The Journal of Social Psychology, 108,103-109. Strangelove, M. (1994).

Cyberspace and the changing landscape of the self. The Geography of Consciousness [Online]
Available: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/seeker1/cyberanthro/cybgeog.html [1996, November 20]. Turkle, S. (1995). 3 pp.

Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet.
New York: Simon & Schuster.

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