Anonymity and its impact on the self-presentation of personality in virtual reality

The development of communication technologies has led to the fact that modern people spend much of their time on Internet communication with their friends, coworkers, and acquaintances. This resulted in the phenomenon of virtual self-presentation of personality. In the new sociocultural environment, the individual has to think over what and how he will tell about himself in the online community. A virtual-ego strategy was mostly based on the complete anonymity of a real person (the use of nicknames, unreal avatars) in the early years of the Internet. With further improvement of information technology, the common anonymity of Internet users has been questioned. The research analyzes the sociocultural problems of people’s anonymity in virtual reality. The author reveals that it is rather impossible to hide your identity and be “different” in the Internet space, which means for many users the need to rebuild their virtual identity. The research deals with the current prospects of anonymity on the Internet. The main reasons why users prefer to remain anonymous are defined. The study determines the impact of the present situation with anonymity on self-presentation in virtual reality.