As I have not played any online games ever (including simple ones like solitaire), I was astounded with IBM’s Second Life program. The complexity of each step of the set-up was impressive. As I was going through each set-up step, I found it very interesting to how real Second Life actually is to the “real world,” or non-CMC environments. There were “Community Standards” that I had to read and agree to before proceeding in the process. “The goals of the Community Standards are simple: treat each other with respect and without harassment, adhere to local standards as indicated by simulator ratings, and refrain from any hate activity which slurs a real-world individual or real-world community.” Then there is an in-depth description about the “Big Six:” intolerance, harassment, assault, disclosure, indecency, and disturbing the peace. After reading through these, they sounded a lot like the unwritten rules of moral conduct in the
I decided to pick the avatar named “girl night club.” To go along with her seductive look, I chose—what I thought to be—an equally seductive name. I then spent the majority of my time in Second Life altering her appearance. My amazement and even addiction to the program continued when I saw that I could alter anything from her body shape to the amount of wrinkles on her shirt. When I was not altering the appearance by changing her skin tone, clothing colors, eye color, etc., I was trying my best to navigate the program. I found it very hard to pick up at first despite the helping box in the upper left corner of the screen. There were many times when I had to go back to the same spot to re-read helpful hints on how to use the program and to figure out what features were available to me. I only chatted with a few men (who were the majority of avatars I came across) after first being typed to.
After I participated in the program and read the article by Yee and Bailenson, I realized that my experience cannot support their research. I did find myself choosing a sexy avatar and altering her name and appearance to best “fit the part.” However, my motives behind my choice and the alterations were not based on how attractive I wanted my avatar to appear but how amazed I was by the program’s capabilities. As I spent very little time actually interacting with other users, my avatar did not affect my behavior in significant or instantaneous ways. Being a very inexperienced gamer in such an advanced program, my choice of an avatar was not based on using self-representation in a virtual environment which caused no change in my behavior.
1 comment:
Hi, Krystal. This was a nice post. I think it’s very interesting that your experience focused almost completely on the ways in which you could shape your virtual appearance, as opposed to focused on interaction in a new environment. This demonstrates the aspect of Problematic Internet Usage we discussed wherein the degree to which one can control one’s environment affects how inviting the environment becomes. Maybe it is this aspect of control that draws people to Second Life, rather than the chance to interact in an anonymous environment. Maybe it is a mix of the two, but based on your observations, it seems like the ability to control even little details (like wrinkles) is the true addiction of Second Life users.
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