"Multi-User Dungeons and Alternate Identities"--Howard Rheingold

In “Multi-User Dungeons and Alternate Identities,” Howard Rheingold discusses MUDs. MUDs are Multi-User Dungeons, which are make believe worlds in computer databases. Through these worlds, people “use and program languages to improvise melodramas, build worlds and all of the objects in them, solve puzzles, invent amusements and tools, compete for prestige and power, gain wisdom, seek revenge, indulge greed and lust and violent impulses,” (149). Through MUDs, people develop an alternate life. This is good for people who are not of high social status in the real world and may not have a “glamorous life,“ but want to. In addition, this is good for people who want to explore features of their personality that can’t be expressed or explored in real life. Through this, they can learn things about themselves that they did not previously know before, causing them to grow. Also, the creation of these alternate identities and the use of MUDs can be used for therapy. For example, a girl who is having relationship problems with her boyfriend because of jealousy issues can go on MUDs and create an alternate identity and interact with a virtual boyfriend. Through this interaction, she can use her alternate identity to experiment with different ways approach her jealousy issues. She can then use this to modify her behavior in real life with her boyfriend. This can be used as a form of therapy for her in that she can have the chance to break out of her bad habits through the use of alternate identities.

Although these may make MUDs seem only beneficial, MUDs also pose some serious threats. MUDding can become seriously addictive. Some people spent 70 to 80 hours a week. MUDding, which can harmfully affect their social life as well as school work. In addition, MUDding increases telecommunications traffic as well as using a lot of computer memory. Lastly, some MUD users lie about their gender and also pretend to be other people in real life. These harmful threats that MUDding has caused, has led to the ban of MUDding in college campuses.

Curious on how MUDding becomes addictive, I read an article about it. In this article, a woman explains how people who are slowly becoming addicted to MUDding spend all of their available time MUDding and even start to cut out activities to spend more time MUDding. The woman discusses how people who become addicted to MUDding can lose their marriage, education, and job. This woman then describes how her husband became addicted to MUDding. She saw the signs of his addiction at the beginning when she knew she had competition with MUDding for his time and attention. The woman was jealous of the time and attention he would spend MUDding. However, she never knew the extent to which it would affect their marriage and lives. The woman then explains how she doesn’t know how she will eventually handle her husband’s addiction to MUDding. His addiction has lasted three years and she doesn’t know if their marriage will be able to last through it.

Although cases similar to this article are extremely prevalent today, MUDding should in no way be banned from anyone. MUDding is used for many positive reasons. In addition to being used for therapy and for personal growth, MUDs are also being used for education. Classes currently are using classes in Second Life for education in real life. MUDs also are being used to acquire skills. I personally have no idea how to use a tool set. So, in real life, I have not been able to develop any building or construction skills. However, on MUDs, I can use tools to build things. Through this, I can acquire these skills, and use them in real life so I can actually use tools and build things.

There are a couple of uses of MUDs that really touch my heart. One of them is to help heal shell shock of soldiers after they come back from fighting in a war. They are able to use these virtual worlds to help work through their shell shock problems they experience when they come home from war. Soldiers who fight wars for our country are extremely brave and noble. I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. The fact that many of them experience negative effects of shell shock, is really sad. This is why it is extremely beneficial that MUDs are able to help heal them of shell shock. Another extremely beneficial use of MUDs is for cancer patients. Certain MUDs allow cancer patients to fight cancer cells online. The more the patients beat them online, the more they feel good about their treatment. This is used as a form of encouragement for them. It will help ease the psychological pain of their cancer and help them feel better about their situation, making them feel happier. One other wonderful use of MUDs is for physically disabled people. Since physically disabled people can’t go out to meet people, they can use MUDs to feel part of the “group” and to meet people. This allows them to experience a more “normal” lifestyle.

Considering all of these positive uses of MUDs, I still do not understand why MUDding was ever banned on college campuses. The numerous advantages of MUDs more than outweigh the few disadvantages