Is there a correlation between the type of study in college/high-school (apprenticeship etc...) and online habits? Like are game/tech forums mostly populated by the tech/computer students?

What are your areas of study in college or high school?

Do you think the Internet is really an alternate reality where people take on completely different demeanors/roles than they do in society?

No, I don't believe that, however, considering the population of THIS forum, I think quite a bit of people here have either gone to college/university or are currently attending.


Currently attending Tarleton State University for a bachelor's degree in computer science.


Some people surely do that, either to deceive or to feel more powerful about themselves for whatever reason.

Studying at Sheffield for a degree in what basically is Computer Science.


Hate it.

About to be a senior in high school. Got my A+ and Microsoft Office Specialist certifications, and am about to start working on my CCNA. I plan to go to college for information assurance.

This is not about the level of education per se, but which fields are people involved in.

Like are there large numbers of Classics or perhaps PolSci students on tech or game forums? In school they would not be bothering with this stuff, and seem to have a different type of personality than the Computer Science students for example.

There was a thread here about someone wanted to remove anonmity from the Internet, made me thinking whether people online look anything like what they sound like online.

http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/Internet

I'm planning on majoring in Classics.

I'm working on my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration, with a minor in Art History.

It does seem like a lot of people here want to pursue a computer-related career, but not disproportionately so. IMO, this is not because this forum attracts tech-minded people, but rather because videogames encourage people to go for related careers. In some of the smaller TES related forums I hand out at very few people work/study in tech fields in real life.

Not really. That was somewhat the case before the internet took off for home users in the '90s, but certainly not since then. There does seem to be an age bias, which I find rather curious as there are relatively few people around my age (40ish) online in spite of many of them being into games and technology in their youth.


I studied computing at university, though that was 20+ years back.


Depends how you look at it. There're certainly plenty of people who decide to abandon any pretence to manners or etiquette when they're online and behave in a manner that is shall we say "different" to how they would if they were actually in the same room as their audience. I've met a lot of people IRL who I first encountered online and you can often predict what they'll be like in person: most are pretty much as you'd expect, but the more boastful or obnoxious ones tend to be either very reticent or very dull when you meet them face-to-face. I guess you can't always judge though, all of us have off days. In fact my off days are probably the most numerous.

Well I'mn a law graduate, so I guess not. But I've never been much of a computer buff, at least not enough to make a career out of it.

It does stand to reason you'd get more computer people than normal on a videogame website. Some of them may even have been inspired by gaming.

Not me, I'm just as contrary in real life as I am online!

I'm probably more grumpy IRL.

To some extent I would say yes. People normally choose to study those subjects that they are good at or at least sufficiently interested in, and they will also usually only visit websites that cater to their interests. Of course, people's hobbies and interests can be much broader than their academic background may suggest, but eventually we all have to prioritize just a few interests over others.



My AS/A Levels were in Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Drama and General Studies :rolleyes:. After learning the hard way that these by and large weren't the subject areas I really enjoyed/were good at, I studied International Politics and Drama for my BA (Hons) degree. Whether it's general science, politics or the theatre though, I am still interested in all three fields- and especially where the boundaries between them become less clear-cut.



Alternate reality? No. It may be a world of hypertext and hyper-reality, but it is still intrinsically part of our "normal" social reality, and any attempts we may make at acting differently online will always be conditioned by our offline circumstances. Likewise, our offline behaviour can very much be shaped by our online experiences- particularly as networked technology increasingly moves towards convergence and social ubiquity.

I'm planning on majoring in business or some sort of engineering. At the moment, my major is computer engineering but I do not want to do that.