For my assignment, I chose to create a character in Second Life. Dressed in “nightclub” attire and sporting the “shaved head “ look, the contemporary, and politically aware, MrThomas Jefferson dawned n the Second Life online space ready for political input, Founding Fatherly advice, and innovation participation (I saw ‘Jefferson’ as an available last name for my avatar and took advantage). He was relatively tall and had a symmetrical face with several attractive body and facial features. Before I describe what I encountered in this space, however, I’ll first discuss some of Second Life’s attributes.
This space begins with a short tutorial to help a user learn the basics including walking, chatting, and utilizing the toolbar. After the tutorial, you are left to discover this enormous virtual space. The amount of possible locations to visit with your avatar seems endless. There are political forums, fashion islands, specific interest areas, and even a Cornell class is on Second Life. One can transport from island to island, experiencing different people and interests. I found in some cases that since I only had the basic membership, I was unable to explore certain “premium account” exclusive areas. The look of each island or place varies as well. Sometimes there are elaborate building complexes that mimic malls or business districts; others are vast grassy areas with trees and the occasional car and small building. Essentially, anyone who joins can find any topic of interest and meet people by traveling from island to island.
Because I created MrThomas Jefferson, I thought it might be interesting to go to a political forum first. I searched for politics and got hits like “Hillary Clinton for President,” and “Barack Obama ’08.” Interestingly, I didn’t really find many avatars in these forums, so I chose a more popular place to visit (I’m assuming not too many people go on to discuss politics despite the existence of these islands). One of the more popular places I found was a fashion space. Here, I interacted with many avatars. Every avatar in this place seemed to be sporting some extravagant, trendy clothing. It felt upscale and almost intimidating, but MrThomas Jefferson’s “nightclub” outfit helped to ease some of this dissonance. I was first approached by a couple avatar that made compliments about my name claiming that it was creative or “not very original.” For the most part, however, I approached avatars and asked about their experience on this island. One avatar in particular was ‘Dian Ciass’. I found it somewhat difficult to get into the “avatar mentality” and I was, at first, interacting the way I do in face-to-face communication—no more or less confident or self-disclosing. However, as time progressed, my conversations and my mentality were noticeably shifting into this “avatar mentality.” My discussions with some people progressed to higher levels of self-disclosure, where I was disclosing information like where I live and what I’m interested in. And reciprocity also increased, allowing me to learn and inquire about information from ‘Dian Ciass’.
Here is where we can begin to compare my Second Life experience to Yee & Bailenson’s (2007) Proteus Effect. In their study, they test three hypotheses assessing “interpersonal distance,” “self-disclosure,” and height and its influence on confidence in an online virtual world.
For me, it was hard to assess whether the likelihood of “ interpersonal distance” was actually increased because of the attractiveness of my avatar because in most places that I visited, the avatars were all relatively attractive. However, I did find that as I was looking for possible people to approach, I avoided avatars that had awkward features like large pink hair, or weird shiny shirts. I think that this is a lot harder to assess in Second Life because of the ability to selectively self-present. This could lead to the possible overpopulation of attractive avatars (only some may accurately depict themselves). Yee & Bailenson (2007) discuss this in their study:
Another limitation was that we were unable to explore the role of choice in the Proteus Effect. In our studies, participants were given avatars rather than being able to choose their own avatar---the typical situation in online environments. (p. 285)
Despite the ambiguity of “interpersonal distance” in my own experience with Second Life, I did find that I was more inclined to “self-disclose” to other attractive avatars. Yee & Bailenson (2007) found that “participants who had more attractive avatars exhibited increased self-disclosure and were more willing to approach opposite-gendered strangers after less than 1 minute of exposure to their avatar.” (p.285) I was approached frequently and my amount of self-disclosure was high, which agreed with Yee & Bailenson’s findings.
Next, height was considered to reflect more confidence in decision-making and leadership capabilities (qtd. In Yee & Bailenson, p. 276) In my case, I found it hard to discern whether my height had any affect on who I spoke to and what kind of interaction I engaged in. However, if one considers the amount of interactivity with other avatars in such a short amount of time, they could argue that the height of my character influenced this interactivity, supporting Yee & Bailenson’s (2007) third hypothesis. Overall, I found it difficult to analyze the second Life atmosphere using Yee & Bailenson’s study because I found it difficult to find significant connections that don’t incorporate the limitations mentioned in their study, like behavioral confirmation and choosing an avatar.
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2 comments:
Brandon,
I also found that the selective self-presentation aspect hindered my ability to assess the presence of the Proteus Effect vs. Behavioral Confirmation, et al, because, wouldn't I be inclined to choose an avatar that reflected my own wants? I suppose you exhibited some of the Proteus Effect, as you changed you lost some FtF inhibitions through self-disclosure.
There is definitely some pre-set motives involved in games like Second Life. Pick a sexy character, then work it. There is a conscientious choice to alter your FtF personality -- The Proteus Effect seems to emphasizes the preconscious and unconscious aspects of change in a virtual environment, which would discount such active role-playing to some degree.
Hey,
Interesting post! You see to be a little better versed in Second Life and gaming then many of us, so your insights give a different perspective. I find it really interesting that there were very few people in the political forum. I wonder why? Do people use Second Life as an escape from all the real world issues, or rather an extension/opportunity to be someone else in our own current world? Additionally, I, like you, had trouble distinguishing myself from my avatar. For me, it was because I created my avatar as an extension of myself. I found it really interesting that your avatar was completely different, yet you still felt a connection. I guess its not so much a factor of who/what the avatar is like, but more about the online space/nature of online gaming. ps - Clever Title!
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