A Bad Advantage - Second Life

In my first online gaming experience I went to Second Life to explore the environment. I began by creating an Avatar that looked similar to me. She was tall, blonde hair, some freckles and wore jeans and a t-shirt and I felt she looked attractive. When I began on Orientation Island I walked around a bit and observed for the first few minutes. I saw other avatars and thought that overall they were all attractive to; I did not notice any bluntly unappealing features on any of the avatars just different variations of looks and clothing.

I walked around a bit and tried to find people that were doing something that I could start a conversation about. First time around, I had a hard time positioning my avatar to face the other person I was trying to talk to so that conversation was fairly short. However, when I was talking to different people I did not notice a distinct difference between those who I spoke to and those who I did not. I think I approached a variety of males and females and did not discriminate on who I chose to talk to based on their looks.

Yee & Bailenson said in their hypothesis number one that those avatars that are more attractive will have more confidence and this is evident in their positioning. Attractive avatars got closer to other avatars then unattractive avatars did. I did not experience this and perhaps it was because I felt that I was an attractive avatar. I feel as thought just as it is true in real life people who feel attractive and have more confidence do not notice the insecurity issues and different behavioral patterns that go along with that insecurity because they do not experience it themselves. Thus it is difficult to accurately say if Yee & Bailenson's hypothesis is correct.