I chose Second life to begin my online gaming experiment. I played some online RPG (role play game) before, which helped a lot when I download, registered and filled out those endless forms.
Second life is like other RPG I’ve played. You have the chance to choose the appearance of your avatar, and need to work or complete certain tasks for money. Always want to try a totally different life style, I chose one of the defaults features “nightclub”. By adjusting her appearance, I tried my best to make her look like me, but improved a lot of course. It’s interesting that although users are permitted to set their avatar to be any way they want it to be, seldom did I come across some horrible looking guys/girls in the street. Most people chose to be “normally” good looking.
Referred to as the Proteus Effect, Yee & Bailenson (2007) suggest that an individuals' digital self-presentation may help dictate that individual’s behavior, independent of how they are perceived by others.
Most girls including myself learned from experience how important their appearance could influence them in their social life. I don’t know how much did my appearance influence me in my second life in the way people treat me, but they are all kind and helpful. Most of the time, I don’t have be the first one to start a chat with strangers. People are willing to chat with a pretty looking girl. But it seems too early to tell how Proteus Effect play a role in this game. Maybe it’s just because I am a newbie, and people are just trying to help. So I decided to change my appearance. In their study, Yee & Bailenson tested the effects of attractiveness, and found that participants with more attractive avatars walked closer to a confederate and exhibited higher degrees of self-disclosure than those with unattractive avatars in virtual reality. I found it really true, when I put more than 20 pounds on my body, I found that I don’t have to stop and chat anymore. People suddenly became obviously less interested.
I found it fun to spend an hour sitting in front of my computer to have another life. But after that, I am not likely to spend more time in virtual space. Maybe the reason why lots of people are willing to spend hours on Role Playing Games is the ability it offered to have an appearance they want and experience a whole new world they failed to experience in real life.
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3 comments:
Hi Yu,
I enjoyed reading your blog post and feel as though you made some great points about the features of Second Life that I could relate to. One thing you pointed out was the fact that not one person created their avatar to be unattractive. In fact, most avatars were very attractive. I too, came across this same observation when exploring Second Life. I also liked the way in which you chose to manipulate the appearance of your avatar. By making small adjustments, such as adding on weight to your avatar, you wee better able to see the impact that one’s appearance has on social interaction in virtual online spaces which could even extend into real world social interactions.
I really liked your post and your connections to the Yee and Bailenson article. Its interesting that you found very few unattractive avatars in the world you entered because in class we studied that all types of avatars are present. I also liked that fact that you made youself unattractive, as you mention toward the end of your post. You're one of the few posts I have read (although I have not read that many) that has found the Proteus Effect to be true. Manipulating the avatar allowed you to experience different aspects of social interaction with different avatars, something that not many others did. Do you think the same thing would have happened if you had switched genders? Also, do you think your own personality showed through on your avatar, despite that fact that others wouldn't really talk to you when you were a little less attractive?
I definitely agree with you when you say the idea of being able to have control over your attractiveness is definitely one of the advantages of online gaming and avatars. I wonder if there was an experiment or survey, if people that game frequently also often rate themselves as being unattractive. It might be an interesting subject to look into.
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