"Manipulation of the self" which certain cybernauts practice by taking on a gender, age, statute, etc. other than their own in discussion groups or in IRCs is becoming much more common. It is due to the fact that the borrowed identity can not be played out in real society that it is played out on the Internet. More particularly, the manipulation of self on the Internet is indicative of the suffering and the difficulty of the contemporary individual in meeting the challenge of managing his identity. Recourse to "manipulation of self" can lead to two extremes, either the dissolution of the individual in his own virtual reality, or the critical experimentation of the limits of self by the subject. In the first case, through the enjoyment of the unrestrained pleasures of the recognition of his fantasies by the network, the individual risks locking himself into the compulsive use of the Internet, which can lead to the development of a schizophrenic-autistic attitude. In the second case, the experimentation with otherness can lead the individual to a better understanding of the discrepancy between his ideal and reality, to finding his place in the world and to rethinking his limits in a more open and creative attitude.