Seconds after my arrival, two more characters, one female and one male arrived. Inevitably Carol and I looked exactly the same, except she could walk straight. She initiated the conversation. It was interesting to see the same looking-characters talking to each other. I felt anxious to change out of my default brown hair, jean wearing character and develop my own avatar. My attempt to get my avatar to represent real-life characters of myself showed in name selection and appearance edit. I kept my initials SC and tried to adjust my avatar's appearance to match my own. Suzie had straight dark brown hair and wore a black shirt, jean shorts and hot pink flip flops. For fun I added hot pink long gloves.
According to Yee and Bailenson, "an individual's behavior confirms to their digital self-representation independent of how others perceive them." They argue that perceived appearance and height of avatar influence how players act in virtual world. My experience did not confirm the Proteus Effect. I thought my character looked attractive, but I was preoccupied with trying to stop walking into objects. Navigation was tough, because I wasn't used to maneuvering in virtual environment. Even after a lengthy orientation, I had a lot of trouble making turns. Whenever I stopped "flying," poor Suzie Caproni fell on the ground face-down and shook dirt off her clothes. To avoid embarrassment of blocking others, I did not walk closer to other characters or feel the urge to join others' conversations. One person did ask me to go swimming with him. I teleported to various locations labeled popular and friendly to new users, but they looked mostly deserted. My character was average height of 5'4" which is my actual height, but height in interactions played minimal role. I couldn't judge other character's height, so I did not feel the effects of height differences.
3 comments:
Su:
I also did not find myself experiencing the Proteus Effect in my experience with the game due to many of the same reasons you stated. My height seemed relatively close to others in the space and situations did not arise where I felt height would really matter. Like most of people, I also stuck with features and characteristics that were similar to my own and thus found myself not immensely effected by how others responded to me. I'm also very impressed that you learned how to fly, I never accomplished that feat.
Speaking on the Proteus Effect, I had a similar problem trying to confirm it, but I think it has a lot to do with the idea that it is something an outside observer may need to see because people are usually biased by thinking they have complete control and are not affected by their avatar's appearance. However, i used a skateboarding game, and I think that the big problem with the proteus effect, is that it relies on social interaction to make a difference, because the more tasks you had to complete, like walking in 2nd Life or skateboarding in the game I played.
It’s great to hear that I wasn’t the only one who found that I exerted more energy in maneuvering around the Second Life world than in my interactions with others. It is interesting that you fashioned your avatar to be an accurate digital representation of yourself. I am curious if playing the game for a longer period of time might have changed your perception of yourself when playing. Perhaps if you were more comfortable in the environment as you got accustomed to navigating the world, the Proteus Effect might have been apparent.
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