For this week’s assignment I’m afraid I was terribly unoriginal in choosing to experience Second Life. The whole online gaming world was new to me and the fact that my computer has had a mind of its own lately made this experience very interesting. Second Life is not your typical game in the sense that you win or lose, but moreover Second Life is a sort of simulation of real life interactions where you can socialize and participate in group activities, and you get to create your own person (personality, looks, the works). When you subscribe you get to choose your own first name, which can include letters and numbers; however, the strange thing was you had to pick your last name from a list (e.g. Destiny, Darwin, Schmooze, etc.); this was probably the first time I found myself starting to formulated the personality I was going to portray online because some of the names had strong connotations associated with them. I ended up choosing Schmooze, because well it was similar to the spelling of my last name. For my avatar I decided to go with the basic “Girl Next Door” – a similar body type to my own. When presented with the options all the avatars were seemingly young, attractive, thin, and tall. This may be a way to sway users into using more aesthetically pleasing avatars, a subtle hint at social acceptance. I ended up thinking about what other users would think if I chose the scantily clad nightlife avatar or decided to be a cat. This leads to Yee & Bailenson’s (2007) Proteus Effect (P.E.) where an individual evaluates themselves in a third-person perspective. It is similar to behavioral confirmation (acting in a way to confirm conceived perceptions); however, instead of relying on another individual to make notions about you you are instead gauging yourself. Then, once you begin interacting with others you experience behavioral confirmation (B.C.) of other individuals making judgments on you.
In person I’m not much of a schmoozer (…realizing I probably should’ve chosen a different last name, oh well); I’m known to be very shy and reserved when I meet new people. So I wasn’t sure how I was going to fair in this situation. I think I felt the effects similar to “stranger on the train”, where even though I wasn’t visually anonymous, I was still unbeknownst to the other users so I ended up disclosing more than I would in real life. Once I got the hang of it I would talk to more people and I felt more comfortable and ended up “connecting” to the other users more (maybe I am a Schmoozer after all). This is consistent with Yee and Bailenson’s (2007) findings that attractiveness leads to more self-disclosure and closer contact with other avatars. In real life, I am tall for a girl and not necessarily more confident than others around me, so the height issue online didn’t really make any difference to me.
In all I definitely believe that the hyperpersonal model is evident in avatar choice and maintenance, because of the P.E. and B.C. cycle (you originally selectively self-present and others expect you to present a certain way). Once others establish a stereotype or expectation of your identity you adhere to it. I ended up combining my actual and ideal selves through the use of an avatar and CMC. I feel like choosing an avatar can go back to the Self-Presentation Goals as seen in the online dating profiles because some people turn to Second Life to have relationships. And deceptions about attractiveness, height, weight, and age (conventional signals) are easily manipulated through the use of avatars; for example, an overweight male might choose a more built avatar.
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3 comments:
Samantha, good post. I have never used Second Life but it seems like a very good choice to use for this assignment. I was interested in how you said you felt that you combined your actual self with your ideal self by the time you were done. I feel that in most cases it is often hard to separate the two. If your ideal self is entirely different from your actual self, it is no longer you. Unless you are just messing around online, if you truly want to interact with other people online, your true personality with come out and often take over. When you are choosing the avatar, you are choosing a character that you want to represent you and it is almost impossible for your character to truly represent you if there is absolutely no tie between you and your character. If you want to be living the life of your ideal self online, your actual self should be somewhere in there.
Interesting post, Samantha. I was first attracted to it due to your title, and it lived up to my expectations. I think it's very interesting how your Second Life name ended up being so close to your real last name. You bring up an interesting point when you say that choosing an online avatar goes back to the self-presentation goals of online dating. This time both the conventional and assessment signals are easy to lie about.
The "un-realism" of Second Life is further perpetuated by the limits of physical attributes you can choose from to make your avatar in Second Life. No matter how hard I try, I don't think I could ever separate my "real" self from whatever alternate reality self I make, which made Second life so awkward for me. Good post.
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