ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH

Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 Extending the Self in a Virtual World

Shakeel Siddiqui, Dublin City University Darach Turley, Dublin City University

Extending the Self in a Virtual World Shakeel Siddiqui, Dublin City University Darach Turley, Dublin City University Abstract:The

notion of ‘extended self’ has enjoyed a deservedly long and reputable pedigree in consumer research. Essentially, it portrays the

consumers extending their sense of ‘who they are’ through ‘what they have’. The advent of Computer Mediated Environment (CME)

technologies has provided the current cohort of consumers an alternate platform for extension and expression of self – by offering an

array of intangible ‘Virtual Possessions’. This paper examines the characteristic intangibility and fluidity of these new consumables by

calling into question the applicability of the extended self-concept, as traditionally formulated, in this seemingly disembodied

consumer domain and finds that cyber-psychically digital consumers are still materially oriented.

[to cite]:

Shakeel Siddiqui and Darach Turley (2006) ,"Extending the Self in a Virtual World", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research

Volume 33, eds. Connie Pechmann and Linda Price, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 647-648.

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647 Advances in Consumer ResearchVolume 33, © 2006

Extending the Self in a Virtual WorldShakeel Siddiqui, Dublin City UniversityDarach Turley, Dublin City University

EXTENDED ABSTRACTIt has been suggested that contemporary consumption is

characterized more by an electronically conducted flow than byembedded heavy commodities. Widespread experimentation withconsumption of technology has resulted in the creation of newermodes of consumption and possession. Computer Mediated Envi-ronment (CME) technologies have lately become a representativeform of technological consumption. It can be argued that everymoment spent in a mediated environment entails another given upin the real world; each act of consumption in a CME replaces an actof consumption in the real world; each simulated possession re-places a tangible one.

Technology is changing forms and modes of consumption;objects of possession and collection are being de-materialized.Examples of such replacements are letters by e-mail, cards by e-cards, paperbacks by e-books, newspaper by online versions,printed photographs by electronic format and real musical instru-ments by the virtual. While only some of these consumables in theCME may qualify as possessions on a par with our materialpossessions, all are nonetheless replacements of tangible posses-sions, and as such comport the potential and promise of self-extension. Given that a consumer’s sense of self is in part predicatedupon relationships with material objects, we ask how the demate-rialization integral to new technologies such as CME alters this selfdefinition process. Using Belk’s original formulation of the ex-tended self, we seek to understand if and how self-extension bymeans of consumption is affected by virtual possessions in a CME.

The study makes use of a slightly modified version of multi-sited multi-modal ethnography to cater for both landscape localismand flexible modes of netnographic data collection. Seven virtualreplacements of tangible possessions represent the main focus ofthe findings. These are e-mail, e-cards, e-books and journals,pictures/photographs, newspapers, audio/video files and musicalinstruments.

Findings: The transition from real to virtual is neither suddennor total; such replacements are progressive and incremental. Thereis a certain degree of fluidity and interchangeability in the waypeople make their consumption choices at different times. Thiscontext-dependant switching may result in an individual employ-ing both tangible as well as hyperreal modes of consumption andpossession for a single product at any given moment.

We found uncertainty a key component of this transition. Ourinformants found it difficult to replace tangible possessions likepictures with the digital versions. Even the very technologicallyadept informants wanted to keep a printout as well as multiplecopies of digital pictures. This uncertainty was rooted in concernsabout ownership and security of digital pictures, which perhapsecho the control aspect of possessions. Social visibility was anotherdimension of this uncertainty; conversion of self-defining posses-sions to a digital state reduced the social visibility. Such intangiblepossessions with reduced social visibility were not as ‘self-defin-ing’ as their tangible counterparts; this ‘taking a part out of me’effectively altered the source and sense of identity for our infor-mants.

We also found emotional attachment as a missing attribute formany virtual versions of the tangible possessions. For example,where in case of real books the reasons of attachment were emo-

tional (pleasure, pride, aesthetics, value), they were purely func-tional for e-books (cost, ease of use, updates). Very similarly, ourinformants found it easier to delete an e-card than to tear up aHallmark.

Collections (Pictures, letters, music, cards): Self-extensionthrough possessions is often manifested in collections. Consistentwith the argument presented earlier that consumers tend to experi-ment with the consumption of technology, we found many of ourinformants using CME as a platform for collection, parallel to or inaddition to the other platforms of collection in their lives. Manyself-defining collections-such as those of personal letters and cards,newspaper clippings with personal ties, music and pictures-act asreminders and mementos of the past and containers of identity.With the advent of new media technologies cyberspace has becomethe ultimate history-book. In the cyberspace, ‘we are what we post’;however, for some of our informants such self-presentation incyberspace had little self-defining or collectible value. However,digital music emerged as one exception of self-defining collection;many of our informants thought that CME, because of its seamlessgeographically unbounded interconnectivity, was a potent platformfor music collection and consumption.

Collections–as tangible manifestations of identity, as a part ofone’s physical environment–are the sources of meanings, creatinga sense of past. Intangible collections–such as pictures, letters,songs and cards on hard disk, presented a sense of past that wasqualitatively different from the tangible collections for our infor-mants.

Dilemmas of Virtual Possessions: Given their special charac-teristics, virtual possessions may become a source of many dilem-mas for the consumer. Our informants seemed extremely wary ofthe fact that constant changes to the technological environment maylimit continued control and access to their virtual possessions.Beliefs and assumptions that such changes in technological ordermay necessitate forced and untimely disposition of a virtual posses-sion gave rise to many concerns. Further, since social exhibition isa desirable quality for many self-extending possessions, any dema-terialization which alters this visibility also affects its role in self-extension. Finally, because simulations can be duplicated by elec-tronic means, they appeared to be less authentic and our informantsfound this difficult to accept.

ConclusionDigital dematerialization in terms of consumption and posses-

sion has been portrayed as an indication of gradual abdication ofmaterialistic values in contemporary societies; however, a sizeablebody of literature in consumer research views self extension throughpossessions as almost always materially oriented and external innature.

Objectification of a possession assumes a central role in thewhole process of creation and maintenance of the construct of‘possession’. We find that even though they might exist and interactin the disembodied domain of cyberspace, consumers are stillconditioned to exist and respond to a material world where con-structs like possessions, no matter how abstract, still need tangiblefoundations. The simulations in CME might replace some aspectsof the real and tangible, but they do not completely replace them interms of value and association.

648 / Extending the Self in a Virtual World

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