Hey guys,

I see the general trend is short introductions, but I thought I might ramble a little bit more...

I'm Kate, and am halfway through my Arts degree, doubly majoring in Psychology. I like to draw a lot, and have recently started experimenting with digital drawing with a graphics tablet. I mostly tend to draw pictures of people but have lately started translating that into Manga styled art. I have only seen a few Animes and read one or two Mangas, but my favourites so far are Vampire Knight, Death Note, Tenjho Tenge and Speed Grapher. One day I hope to make a comic of my own, but I think that will be a long way away...

This unit attracted me because I've always found identity construction on the internet to be such a peculiar thing. Smack a picture of a pretty girl on your Facebook, add a few pictures of your "BFFLs", and it's a rare person that is going to pick up on the fact that you are actually a forty year old man, sitting in his lounge room in his underwear.

Not only can identity be entirely disguised, people can live entire social lives on the internet. With social networks so accessible, there is little need for some people to spend face to face time with anyone. The online gaming sensation World of Warcraft has created a huge amount of problems surrounding users addiction, and its consumption of them into it's online world. I have heard of one man who became divorced from his wife, after spending his life savings on a sword for his character in the game. This sword was not a material object, it was a data set for insertion into the online world which he had built a life around. Sadly, unless he cared a lot about his relationship with his wife, I don't know if he would have bettered himself from the situation. I found this website for World of Warcraft addicts, similar to that you might find for those recovering from substance abuse. WoW Detox: The Detox Centre for your World of Warcraft Addiction!
Some of the testimonies are quite interesting.

Peace :) Kate