As an avid fan of real life experiences, I have always been averse to digital virtual graphical worlds. My preconceptions about these places are that they are filled with creepy-looking 3d representations of human beings flailing their limbs, acting confrontational, and sneaking through tunnels with weapons trying to kill and not be killed. However, in my first encounter with Second Life this weekend, I found quite the opposite. Second Life is a digital world that has been created and maintained by millions of people all over the world. People can do absolutely anything here and accordingly can be anyone they want to be.
When I entered Second Life as Cookie Quinnell in a default City Girl avatar, I felt like I’d been picked up and thrown into another universe. “Orientation Island” is where all new users must start and complete required tutorials to make the transition from our first life to Second Life easier. Unfortunately, my computer had a lot of difficulty running the Second Life application, so all of my interaction took place on Orientation Island with other “newbies”.
Since I could not effectively change the appearance of my avatar, I remained in the city chic default avatar. I went up to a male avatar and asked if he could help me change my appearance, but he too was confused. My willingness to ask a stranger for help is further proof for the data outlined in Yee & Bailenson’s article, “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior” (2007). The default city chic avatar was fairly attractive, so I felt comfortable approaching another individual and self-disclosing my confusion.
Later as I was trying to navigate through the tutorials, another male shouted, “Is anyone home?” to which I replied with a flirtatious “nope” and then approached him. This demonstrates nonverbal expectancy violations theory (Yee & Bailenson) because I came very close to him and was treated positively. We continued our conversation briefly about where we were from and how we were feeling about Second Life.
I felt extremely deindividuated in this quiet, peaceful island setting, which led me to seek out social contact and explore my identity traits. This goes along with the Proteus Effect that emphasizes conformity of the avatar to its own identity cues. Although technical difficulties cut my first virtual world experience short, I would like to go back into Second Life and experiment with various physical facades and personality traits to see how much the Proteus Effect applies to my experiences.
Comments:
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-10-interacting-in-virtual.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-10-my-second-life.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Caryn,
I held similar assumptions about online games before this assignment as well. I’m glad that you had an enriching experience as Cookie Quinnell, despite your computer difficulties. How exactly did you arrive at that name?
While playing Second Life was definitely an eye-opening experience and I did gain some appreciation for the carefully crafted landscapes and cities in Second Life, I see the program more as a time sink than anything else. It’s easy to get addicted to drinking in the virtual bars and dancing at the virtual nightclubs. Still, many people feel a sense of gratification when socializing in these settings because of removal of gating features. The shield of the internet and the afforded anonymity paves the way for more liberal self-expression. Also, like you mentioned, they conform to the identity cues of their specific avatar. Sure, experiencing the Proteus Effect first hand was interesting, but I wouldn’t go as far to say that it changed my perspective. I’m curious to hear your thoughts when you venture back into Second Life. Overall, a great post!
Post a Comment