Assignment 11: Too Much of a Good CMC...

As an incoming freshman at Cornell University, in the spring of 2006, I spent most afternoons perusing classof2010.cornell.edu. It’s a social network of message boards and profiles that allows all of the students in the class of 2010 to meet one another in CMC before they arrive at the Ithaca campus.

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I did meet many of my current, close friends on that website first. But, my current, close friends were people with whom I only briefly discussed topics like my excitement for Cornell, where I was from, what I would be studying, etc. But, there was one particular person who I talked to everyday. In fact, my best friend who was also going to Cornell and I spoke with him everyday.

For the purpose of this blog I’ll call him John. My best friend and I thought John was so cool; we all liked the same music, movies and TV shows. John would make us laugh hysterically and he was one of the main reasons I was so excited to get to Cornell. I thought I was going to meet so many incredibly fun people like John. For months before arriving at Cornell I talked to John, for hours on some nights, and when orientation week finally rolled around, my best friend and I could not wait to meet John.

The third or so night of orientation I invited John to dinner with my roommate and I, as well as another boy my roommate knew from a summer program she had done. When I met all of my other class of 2010 friends in person, it wasn’t a big deal, but when I met John, I could not have been more nervous. Dinner at Appel that night was awful. Every IM I had shared with John was hilarious and exciting. The dinner I shared with John was awkward and uncomfortable. Online John seemed suave and quick with his words, in person he was borderline speech incapable.

I ran into John a few more times after that dinner, but our friendship outside of virtuality was nonexistent. As for all of the other people I met briefly on class of 2010, I’m pretty close with nearly all of them. Hypotheses 3 and 4 of the Ramirez and Wang paper hit this situation right on the nose. I clearly evaluated my long-term CMC association much more negatively than my short-term CMC associations. Length of association appeared to have a lot to do with how positively or negatively I reacted to my CMC friendships when they left virtuality.

Assignment 11: Back To Reality

When I signed up for Facebook, I experienced the barrage of friend requests that all soon-to-be Cornellians received in the months before school started. While I did not make much contact with most of these people beyond the initial friend request, there were a few who I exchanged a number of wall posts with. Within that group, there were some people who I began talking to through IM.

I remember one girl who I talked to often. We spoke about making plans in the future and how much we would hang out once we were at Cornell. Thus we spent the first few months of our relationship, getting to know each other and talking about a future friendship, online.

For whatever reason, neither of us made a huge effort to meet once we got on campus and it was a week or so before I ran into her unexpectedly. Our encounter was brief and we haven’t spoken since.

I think this brings another variable into account that Ramirez and Wang failed to address: time between last online contact and first face-to-face encounter. They did mention time between modality switch (if I read correctly there was a week between the online task and the face-to-face task), but they did not test it as a variable.

I wonder what effect that time gap had on the relationship between my Facebook friend and me. If we had been talking online the night before we left for school, and then planned to meet up the next day, would we have remained close? If there had been even more time in between our mode switch, would we have had more to talk about in our first FtF encounter? We could have lamented about how we had failed to keep in touch, and told each other about the start of the semester.

Regardless of this ignored variable, I think my experience was in line with Ramirez and Wang’s findings. There was more of violation of expectancy since we had known each other online for four or five months. When we talked online it was just us two, but when we met at school for the first time we were with friends and couldn’t just stop and talk to each other. This violated what we expected our relationship to be, and I think ultimately caused the rapid decline of our relationship. It seems quite apparent that modality switches can really impact a relationship.


Comments:

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/11/11-playing-middle-man-to-make-people.html

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-11-first-gf.html

10 To be pretty, or not to be...

For this assignment I decided to create an avatar in the virtual environment known as Second Life. I’m pretty unfamiliar with online video games such as this. The closest I’ve come to playing games like this was The Sims, but I never played online with other characters and such. I decided to use Second Life based on my limited knowledge of the game from an episode of The Office that I saw this year. In the episode, Dwight was going through a breakup and turned to Second Life to detach himself from reality, creating a world within the game called Second Second Life. Since I knew that Second Life was the most logical transition from my limited gaming experience with the Sims, I decided to create an avatar within this virtual environment.

I decided to create an avatar that significantly different than my appearance in real life. I am actually a 19-year-old girl, 5’4”, with curly auburn hair, but my avatar was a 5’8”, balding, overweight man. I wanted to create an avatar that could possibly impact my degree of socialization. I thought that if I decided to be a man within Second Life, I may be more dominant and aggressive within the social environment, but if I made myself less traditionally attractive, my confidence would diminish. During my limited time playing Second Life, it was amazing to me how life-like the virtual environment really is. There were so many design options when creating an avatar, and so many choices as to what to do inside the world.

It was interesting playing in Second Life under this avatar, and I can safely say my behavior was affected, much more than I thought it would. Most notably, while I was in a club scene, I was one of the least attractive avatars in the environment. Not only did this make me less confident to initiate conversation, but people were not exactly clamoring to start talking to me either. According to Yee & Bailenson, “the Proteus Effect may impact behavior on the community level.” In other words, this social club scene made perfect sense. Gather a bunch of attractive avatars and the scene should be buzzing. I definitely felt like the odd man out. Yee & Bailenson go on to state, “As graphical avatars become the dominant mode of self-representation in virtual environments, the Proteus Effect may play a substantial role in encouraging hyperpersonal interaction.” My perceptions of the other avatars were extremely exaggerated positively in comparison to the extreme self-consciousness I felt about my own avatar. After playing under an unattractive avatar, it’s easy to see for me why I was one of the few who decided to look less than stellar.

Comment 1 and Comment 2

10. Second Life or something like it

For this assignment I decided to give second life a try. I had heard of the program before and knew that many people were addicted to the program so I figured it would be fun to see what it is all about.

I first created my account and made my avtar “the girl next door.” The other avtar images seemed to be very odd and the “girl next door” was the most basic and looked like a character in real life. After creating my avtar I entered the second life site in search of someone to talk to. I was approached by another avtar from Sweden who clearly had altered her physical features because she was wearing a very stylish outfit, different from the basic options. Being a newbie and still looking like the basic “girl next door” I felt strange initiating conversation and did not know what to say. Usually in an instant message you know the other person you are talking to but with Second Life it took me a while to understand there are real people behind the characters.

Speaking to the Swedish avtar made me realize that I could alter my appearance too. I change my outfit and moved away from the basic “girl next door “ option. Reading through the different features I felt that I had a better understanding of what I was doing. I went back in search of other avtars more confident about using second life. I was able to talk to several people and kept initiating conversation. I even found myself lost at one point and some other guy avtar in a car offered to drive me. Although I was able to become a more active participant in the end, I do not think I would ever be able to play and chat to strangers for hours on end. I would much rather talk to people in person.

Yee & Bailenson hypothesize that “an individual’s behavior conforms to their digital self-representation independent of how other perceive them.” This process is the Proteus Effect. In their first experiment they measure attractiveness of avtars in relation to self-disclosure. In their second experiment, they found taller avtars were more confident.

My experience in second life aligns with the work of Yee & Bailenson in experiment 1. As I explained earlier, when I was new to the program and was the basic “girl next door,” I did not have much to say to the Swedish avtar that approached me. After looking at her stylish outfit, I thought I was definitely behind as a Second Life player and after my simple question of “Whats up?” I did not have much else to disclose. However, once I altered my appearance and changed my avtar from the basic girl, I talked to more people and felt more comfortable about making conversation in this online space. Whereas Yee & Bailenson predict that an individual that has a more attractive avtar will act more friendly toward others, I found that the reason I became more friendly is because I looked as if I fit in. As the basic “girl next door” it was evident that I was new to program but after altering my clothes, I appeared as a second life vetern. I think that my action can be attributed to deindividuation. Yee & Ballenson explain in their paper “factors that lead to deinidivudation, such as anonymity, might thus reinforce group salience and conformity to group norms.” By changing to a more advanced avtar, I felt that I stood out less and therefore fit in better as a second life player. I was more anonymous by changing my appearance and conforming to the world of second life.

Their second experiment about taller avtars behaving more confidently did not apply to my avtar. Almost all people that I interacted with in second life were the same height. If anything, my confidence increased as I began to understand the game more. I think the reason that my interaction in second life was not as aligned to the studies of Yee & Bailenson is because I was so new to the program. Second Life has so many features that the first half hour I spent trying to understand all that I could do on the site. Also, as far as attractiveness is concerned, besides clothing difference all of the avtars are attractive in shape and facial features. I think that their studies would prove affective on people that play the game more often and also I think that observing people’s self- concept in real life is important to consider. If a person is short/unattractive and has a tall/attractive avtar does that make a difference in their interaction FTF compared to in the CMC space? Observing offline behavior would make the CMC studies more interesting.

10 Identity Crisis of a Miner

Recently, my friend has been trying to get me to play RF Online with him. For those who don't know, it's a MMORPG with a sci-fi setting. I named my character “hotrod4” and I proceeded to choose my avatar's appearance. I choose the Accretia faction and the specialist class. However I soon realized the error of my ways.

When choosing my appearance, there were not much differentiating options for avatars within my class and faction. It seemed like the only way to differentiate my avatar from the others was the color of my singular eye. The test of my individuality continued. Upon entering the game and passing the newbie tutorial, I was greeted by a NPC that told me my job was to mine for minerals. I guess I had to accept that if I was to be a specialist. After entering the mining area, I joined the mass of specialists mining like robots (albeit my faction was basically a robotic race). Soon after, I discovered my clone mining right next to me. After acquiring a couple of ores, I went to hunt some monsters. I began my journey with a pistol, but by the time I returned from grinding, I had obtained a shotgun and new armor. Just as I thought I had proven my individuality, a clone walked by me.

According to Yee and Bailenson's Proteus Effect, my behavior was expected to follow the stereotypical image of my character. When I started mining, I soon realized that all the specialists mined in the same exact spot. I was indeed acting like my role defined in the game space. After my first experience with mining, I decided to try to prove Yee and Bailenson wrong. I was going to hunt and kill instead of mine. Even while hunting and killing, I realized that my actions were akin to the stereotype associated with my avatar. After acquiring a shotgun, I spent 30 minutes doing nothing but killing lower level creatures to show off my overpowering gun. I was behaving more like the commanding image given off by my avatar. Realizing this, I decided to do something different. I returned to mining. I had forgotten that my purpose was to break out of my mining role. Hard as I tried to gain a sense of individuality, I subconsciously returned to conformity. Sigh.


Comment 1
Comment 2

Assignment 10: First Time in Second Life

Before taking this class, I had never even heard of Second Life. Finally having the motive to explore, I decided now was as good a time as any to see what all the hype was about.
I found that the avatar I created resembled and exaggerated many of my features in real life. My avatar was tall and blond, though I think I added a bit more to my height, just for fun. It took a bit of patience to get everything started, but once it began I had lots of help from others when I was able to socialize.
In the beginning I felt very confident. I had no hesitations talking to other people and even talking about myself, although I did not reveal that I was experimenting for a class. After a while, I began to wonder whether my height made a difference in the way I acted and presented myself online. I shrank my height to see if the Proteus Effect would have an impact on the way I talked in Second Life. Although the change was not significant, I noticed a bit more hesitation. In real life I am so used to being able to at least be eye level with most of my friends that looking up created a forfeiture of some of my confidence. My results did in fact represent the study of Yee & Bailenson

10: WoW

For this assignment I chose to play the extremely popular MMORPG World of Warcraft(WoW). I used a 10 day free trial account for the game to try it out, since regularily I would have to purchase and buy a subscription to play. Due to the game's massive popularity, I was quite excited to give it a try.

The World of Warcraft gamespace takes place in the world of Azeroth, a large virtual environment with several continents and even further sectioned zones within each continent. Before entering the world I was able to choose from several races and classes as well as various appearance options for my avatar. These races and classes were further split into two sides, the Horde and the Alliance. Whichever side I chose decided the continent and zone I would start on, as well as which group I would become a part of. There are amazingly intense intergroup dynamics within a WoW server, especially on the PVP(player v. player) type of server. PvP means players from both sides are allowed to attack each other anywhere in Azeroth. This causes a very strongly salient group identity, and much intergroup conflict.

My avatar in WoW was a Tauren Shaman. He is not the most attractive of characters, indeed his physique resembles that of a walking bull. After asking some people a few questions about how to get started, I was on my way to exploring the Azeroth. I started out killing boars and trying to gain a few levels doing the starter quests. A little while later I was in a zone called The Crossroads, when the Alliance attacked. A large group of Alliance players “raided” the crossroads and killed off both players and NPCs(non-player characters).

Yee & Bailenson studied something they call The Proteus Effect. The Proteus Effect states that “an individual’s behavior conforms to their digital self-representation independent of how others perceive them.” My actions agree in some ways to their studies. First off, I was immediately enraged at the Alliance for attacking The Crossroads, and wanted nothing more than to ensure their demise. Based on my short time playing, my unattractive avatar did possibly not allow as much self-disclosure and interpersonal distance as a more attractive one might have. However, the Horde side has only 1 race, which was added in the expansion, that can be considered attractive. This said, I believe that on the Horde side, attractive avatars are of less importance to the amount of self-disclosure. I also witnessed a direct contradiction to the second study which stated that those with taller avatars behaved more confidently in a negotiation task than those with shorter avatars. I saw a gnome character on the Alliance side with a much more aggressive attitude than the tall humans and night elves around him. I couldn’t understand the Alliance’s stupid language, however he was screaming in CAPs throughout the entire raid on our Crossroads.