For this assignment I chose to experience second life. Before taking this class, the term second life was completely foreign to me. After signing up and choosing my SL name (Audrina Castaignede), I was finally apart of the infamous space that people become so enveloped in. When choosing my avatar’s name, I thought of picking an identifiable first name and a striking last name. I wanted to stand out but not too much.
Being that I have never entered and participated in any online gaming site, I had absolutely no clue what to do. Figuring out how to communicate with others, how to maneuver myself around, and how to find different locations took me a good twenty minutes. I also found that when I tried to ask for help, people didn’t seem too eager to offer their assistance, especially the females which I thought was interesting. After some time of receiving no direction, I decided to change my clothes, eye and hair color to enhance my avatar’s appearance to possibly get the attention that I wanted. After changing “my girl next door” look of jeans and a t-shirt to a skirt and a revealing top, I almost immediately obtained the attention I was looking for. A guy by the name of McBobby McMahon explained how to check someone’s profile, IM, and how to teleport. He asked me how long I have been a part of SL, what I was interested in and where I am from. When I asked him what he meant by where I am from, he responded with “I have no idea!!! =)” . I thought this was odd and so I asked him where he was from and he said “maybe from Spain”. He quickly proceeded to ask me if I wanted to go salsa dancing with him and that is when he taught me how to teleport. With the limited cues available, I formed impressions of various characters, especially McBobby. He was very slow to respond and I could see that he would type something, stop, begin again, stop and finally proceed to send me his message. He was partaking in selective self presentation, as was I.
When the game first began, I was imposing my personality on my avatar’s character. Her clothes were clothes I would wear, her attitude was a reflection of mine, and I spoke to others in a manner that I would normally do myself. As the game progressed and as I became more comfortable with the game, my avatars character began to change. My character Audrina was more aggressive with her speech, more outgoing and very extroverted. I found myself not caring what others thought and went about my business exploring and meeting new people. I did find it difficult in the beginning initiating myself in conversations as I didn’t know what I should talk about and what would be acceptable to talk about. When I realized that people didn’t really care what a conversation consisted of, I became more confident in talking about anything. I felt comfortable, in a weird way, self-disclosing information about my character to people, whether female or male. I took real life information and used that to give me ideas to talk about and used those to elaborate on. Also because of the way I portrayed my character, there was behavioral confirmation as I took on the qualities and traits that others envisioned me possessing. There was no reason for me not to as everyone is anonymous and no one is able to decipher a truth from a lie.
According to Yee and Bailenson, online spaces such as second life enhance one’s self presentation and behavioral confirmation. Just as in real life, physical attractiveness and social interactions are an important aspect in second life as well and Yee and Bailenson describe this as being a vital facet to enhancing an avatar’s persona. This turns out to coincide with my findings. As my character became more “attractive” due to her clothing, her speech, her weight, her eyes, and her hair, basically her whole appearance, I began to divulge more information about myself and so did other characters with me. People are more confident and assertive when they are perceived as being attractive.
As someone previously mentioned, it is very obvious why and how people spend too much time online. I spent a good two hours on the site and those two hours flew by. I think this will be my last time experimenting with second life and other sites like it. Second life is full of surprises and everything you could imagine is available here. It also seemed more like a dating site than a site to make friends. Although I was completely anonymous, I felt like people could still “see” me and knew what I was doing was a majority of the time a lie. However, this very awkward feeling did slowly diminish as the game progressed. Fun experience though!
comments:
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-10-second-life_8934.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-10-two-views-of-second-life.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hey Meghan,
I really liked your post. It seems like you had a really interesting experience on Second Life. I especially liked how you noticed that McBobby was partaking in selective self presentation. I never picked up on that in my Second Life experience but thinking back to it, there were avatars that I talked to that also seemed to start typing, stop, and then begin again. It was really interesting to see that your actions really confirmed Yee & Bailenson’s study. The fact that your speech and behavior changed when you changed your avatar’s appearance is really interesting. I also found it interesting how you noticed how much time Second Life can consume. I just deleted Second Life from my computer today because I was astounded by how much time I was spending online. I also really enjoyed your insight as to why you were more apt to self-disclose. Since no1 is able to decipher a truth from a lie, one can feel much more comfortable telling the truth, as no one can confirm or deny what you’ve said. Overall really nice post! I’m glad you enjoyed Second Life as much as I did.
Meghan,
I also choose to experiment in Second Life. I think it's interesting that no one helped you for the first half of your time in SL until you changed your look to a more attractive woman. This doesn't make sense to me since everyone in that virtual world understands that it is fake. How do you judge someone superficially when you only have a digital character to look at? I would assume that people would have more caution when meeting others online if not assume the other person is untruthful. This is my first impression of all people I meet in CMC.I always assume people with really attractive avatars are making up for something they lack in real life, just as I assume men with fancy cars are making up for something. I do think it's interesting that you noticed your date was using selective self-presentation. Also, I think it's normal Audrina began acting according to how she felt others were perceiving her. This is true in both CMC and FTF. Overall, great post!
I was just as lost as you were when I first began this assignment. i had never created and played with an avatar and I too had no idea what to do. It is interesting that you were able to pick up on McBobby's selective self-presentation, as well as admit to your own. Your experience is very much in line with Yee and Bailenson because your personality started changing as a result of your character and how you were presenting yourself.
I thought your post was clear and concise. It illustrated the Proteus effect very well, and gave me a better grasp of the conclusions from yee and bailenson. Well done!
Post a Comment