Multiple Personalities -- Who am I?

     "Who am I?" is a question that everyone struggles with at some point in his or her life.  The internet offers us an opportunity to explore various identities via role playing games.  Dr. Sherry Turkle's introduction to her 1995 book Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet explores the idea of creating various personalities in real time via what was then referred to MUDs, Multi- User Domains.  MUDs allowed one person to invent diverse characters and interact with people as those characters in a virtual world.  She wonders how these invented sections of self influence a person's identity.  While the technology has drastically changed in thirteen years, the questions have not.  These games grant an element of anonymity that allows people in real life (RL) the opportunity to run far away from their daily lives.  She compares these MUDs to a form of theater.  I asked a professional actor friend of mine what happens to his identity when he is on stage playing a character.  He told me that he is there, but has the opportunity to see life for a few hours through another person's eyes. This character is developed through hours of a rehearsal process and contains a piece of his own identity, but it is not him.  I've watched many of his performances and yes, it is his physical body, but it's not the person I know so well.  When we meet back stage after a performance, he is my friend once again. 
    Using this analogy, let's examine the modern form of MUDs - a game called Second Life. Second Life gives the same ability to play many roles, but these roles may be done simultaneously.  You create an account on the game, design the avatar (digital character) to look any way you desire, and are sent through training. You become indoctrinated into the culture.  There are various opportunities to get a job, own land, get married, and join clubs.  There are even virtual schools.  People take on these identities and create these parallel lives for hours at a time.  Some even elect to spend real money within these games in order to improve their online selves. 
     Last night I did some research within Second Life.  I asked random avatars I met why they were most attracted to the game. Some were hesitant to answer my questions, became uncomfortable, and walked away.  They were busy with their lives.  The most common response was gamers were just looking to meet people.  I teleported, Second Life's form of transportation, into a room of people dancing and stumbled upon a woman in a wheelchair.  I asked her if she used a wheel chair in real life.  She did and told me that she did and wanted to make her character as close to her real self as possible.  In previous years she had a taken on the presence of a mermaid and an ambulatory person, but decided that she would rather play herself in the game.  I believed her, but she did have the ability to create herself and I would never know the difference.  I had no other choice but to take her at face value.  For all I truly know, it may have been a man.  People step into these games and then step back into their "real life."  Unlike the actor's character in a play which exists only in a specified time, place, and circumstance,  the minute the actor steps off stage he resumes his personality.  These avatars have ongoing relationships that may last for years.  These virtual relationships have very similar emotional ties as the ones experiences in real life.  As far as identity is concerned, like the actor each character created potentially holds a piece person's true identity.   That character does become a small answer to the question, "Who am I?".