10: Absolutely everything was the same... except I could fly

"I signed up for Second Life about a year ago. Back then, my life was so great I literally wanted a second one.
Absolutely everything was the same... except I could fly."
-Dwight Schrute

Throughout the course of this semester I have becoming increasingly interested in joining the magical world of Second Life. Besides the occasional references to the site in class, Second Life has been a central theme in a number of television crime dramas that depict this virtual world as incredibly creepy; in turn making me incredibly interested. To my delight, as soon as my avatar Marli Morrisey was born, I quickly realized that the world of Second Life had just as much creepster-potential as I had assumed. After choosing my “city-chic girl” appearance, I embarked on getting off of Orientation Island which required me to complete a number of tasks such as moving as well as locating a torch in my “inventory” and then putting it in my hand. This is all easier said than done; throughout my Second Life adventures I was forced to restart my unbreakable Mac about 4 times because it froze, a situation I had never before encountered on this perfect machine. Additionally, it took some time to get a feel for how things worked in Second Life in terms of communicating with other users. While in a chat room you can allow conversations to fade on their own, in Second Life you have to deliberately move your avatar away from who you are communicating with in order to truly signal the end of a conversation. Also, although I was conscientiously aware of the fact that the avatar was just a medium through which to maneuver the site, when communicating with other users I made sure to be “facing” their avatar as if we were actually looking at one another.
Although I did not spend enough time in Second Life to fully and completely understand the ways of the virtual reality culture, as I walked (and flew!) about the various Second Life islands, I was forced to communicate with a number of avatars as I sought guidance from others. Unlike the study by Yee & Bailenson, I did not feel that my actions in Second Life were determined by the way my avatar looked. However, what I did find interesting was the way I perceived others based on the appearance of their avatar. While I did not make my avatar particularly tall or attractive, when I sought guidance I did choose taller and more attractive avatars with which to communicate. In keeping with the findings of Yee & Bailenson, these avatars did in fact communicate in a particularly confident manner. While I did not think that my behavior was affected by my avatar, I did contribute other avatar’s behavior to the way they were physically represented. Additionally, I think that my perceptions of the people behind the avatar were much stronger in Second Life than, for instance, a screen name would be in a chat room. For example, I immediately assumed the avatars with wings were a little strange and really into Second Life. While this does not support the findings of Yee & Bailenson, it does offer further support for the Hyperpersonal Model by which we form exaggerated opinions of people based on limited information in CMC.

Commments!
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-clueless-and-naked.html
&
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/11/10-one-life-is-enough-for-me.html