This post was written by Billy Rainsford, a rising senior at UMass Amherst who studies English and Political Science and works with incoming freshmen as both a Resident Assistant and New Students Orientation Counselor. He also writes for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian.
Early on in Ready Player One, narrator Wade Watts outlines one of the key reasons the OASIS has proven so popular: anonymity. The OASIS provides an escape from the painful realities of the physical world, and many players use the opportunity to leave their real selves behind:
Anonymity was one of the major perks of the OASIS. Inside the simulation, no one knew who you really were, unless you wanted them to. Much of the OASIS’ popularity and culture were built around this fact. Your real name, fingerprints, and retinal patterns were stored in your OASIS account, but Gregarious Simulation Systems kept that information encrypted and confidential. (28)
Wade initially takes pride in his efforts to hide his identity, and is confident that no one will connect the elite gunter Parzival with a poor high school student in Oklahoma. There is a very clear line drawn in Wade’s mind between his two identities, and this is what gives him his sense of security that no one else will connect the two, either.
This sense of security comes crashing down around Wade, of course, when Sorrento reveals IOI’s knowledge of his true identity and his whereabouts:
“That’s right,” Sorrento barked. “We know who you are. Wade Owen Watts. Born August twelfth, 2024. Both parents deceased. And we also know where you are. You reside with your aunt, in a trailer park located at 700 Portland Avenue in Oklahoma City. Unit 56-K, to be exact. According to our surveillance team, you were last seen entering your aunt’s trailer three days ago and you haven’t left since.” (142)
As careful as Wade was in protecting his online identity, he was still ‘discovered’ by the sixers, with dramatic consequences.
The life-or-death nature of Wade’s predicament aside, the reason he was found out is one many incoming freshmen will be able to relate to: he was not careful enough in protecting his information online. Teenagers today are constantly lectured on the importance of care in posting personal information on the internet. In particular, the class of 2016 will be familiar with warnings that inappropriate posts online could affect the college admissions process; next, they’ll be hearing about the dangers it poses to a job hunt too.
Young adults are pushed into an uneasy relationship with social networking. Besides the social benefits it offers, the wider world is starting to come around to the practical benefits of sites like Facebook: UMass Residential Life, for example, now encourages incoming freshmen to connect with their roommates through Facebook or Twitter before arriving, and offers help through its own Facebook page. The unease comes when this message conflicts with the warnings students receive about meeting people online. Though it may seem obvious that a future roommate is safe to connect with, where is the line drawn?
Part of the Orientation process at UMass seeks to educate students about that line. During the “Keeping it Safe” presentation by the UMass Police Department, UMPD’s Community Outreach Unit now talks about internet privacy, citing the rule, ‘don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t put on a highway billboard.’
Comparing Facebook to a billboard is more apt than some students may think. As Chris Conley of the American Civil Liberties Union writes:
[T]he privacy control that Facebook has given to users over the sharing of information with general Platform apps and pages is extremely crude: users are only given the choice between having much of their information visible to any application or site they or their friends use or not allowing the sharing of any information with any application or site at all. That means that users who want to use even a single handy app will have to choose between not using that app or opening up all their information to any third-party app used by themselves OR their friends.
In general, UMass students would be wise to guard themselves as much as possible, and another applicable rule would be the age-old ‘better safe than sorry.’ Even maximizing the privacy settings on a site like Facebook may not be enough, as Wade unfortunately found out. Therefore, simply not posting anything that could be deemed personal or questionable is probably the safest route.
Wade’s final bit of advice shows to what extent information should be considered personal. “It never occurred to me that attending school on Ludus was something I needed to keep a secret, [he] said. So I didn’t.” This cap on personal information may make a Facebook profile less exciting, but protect a student as they move forward during their time at UMass and beyond.