SECONDLIFE HAPPENINGS CONTINUED
How Second Life Affects Real Life by Kristina DellWhen I finally made it onto Money Island to mingle, a stranger approached me and said, "Hello there, Devon." I froze. Then I tried to run. I was desperately searching for the teleport tool when my sister walked into the room, peered over my shoulder at the computer screen and said, "Why'd you make your avatar ugly?" I logged off.I didn't realize how instructive my sister's question was until recently, when I discovered research being done at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL). Jeremy Bailenson, head of the lab and an assistant professor of communication at Stanford, studies the way self-perception affects behavior. No surprise that what we think about ourselves affects the confidence with which we approach the world. What is a surprise is that this applies in the virtual world too. With my plain=Jane avatar and my inexperience in Second Life, I did what most people would want to do in an uncomfortable social situation: run away.
What's more, Bailenson's research suggests that the qualities you acquire online — whether it's confidence or insecurity — can spill over and change your conduct in the real world, often without your awareness. Bailenson has found that even 90 seconds spent chatting it up with avatars is enough to elicit behavioral changes offline — at least in the short term. "When we cloak ourselves in avatars, it subtly alters the manner in which we behave," says Bailenson. "It's about self-perception and self-confidence." But researchers are still trying to figure out the psychological mechanisms at work, and which way the effect flows: "Do you consciously wear your power suit to feel confident, or is it that you're in this suit and you're feeling up, but you're unaware of the reason?" says Bailenson. Bailenson's findings have a lot more real-world meaning than you'd think, if only because so many people are spending so much time in the unreal world. Some 13 million people have visited Second Life at least once, with about 450,000 residents online in a given week. Even more popular is the online game World of Warcraft, which has 10 million active subscribers who pay to participate. People spend on average about 20 hours a week in alternate worlds like these, and at VHIL, whose high-tech virtual world is entered by way of a $24,000 helmet, Bailenson and his Ph.D. students are trying to figure out how these increasingly common virtual experiences bleed into reality. "I've been doing this for years and people have been laughing at me," says Bailenson. "All of a sudden, I have people calling and asking about what I do." In one experiment, published in Human Communication Research last year, researchers assessed how an avatar's attractiveness affected human behavior, both online and off. Thirty-two volunteers were randomly assigned an attractive or unattractive avatar (attractiveness was rated by undergrads in a survey beforehand) and instructed to look at them in a virtual mirror for 90 seconds. Then they were asked to interact with other avatars, controlled by the experimenters, in a classroom-like setting. Overall, subjects using good-looking avatars tended to display more confidence, friendliness and extroversion, just as in the real world: they approached avatar strangers within three feet, and in conversations tended to disclose more personal details. Ugly-duckling avatars, meanwhile, stayed five and a half feet away from strangers and were more tight-lipped. Lead researcher Nick Yee, a former Stanford graduate student who now works for the nearby Palo Alto Research Center, replicated his study, then appended a second part: an hour after their forays online, the same volunteers were told they were participating in an unrelated study about online romance. They were instructed to pick two potential dates out of nine photos in an online-dating pool. People who had used attractive avatars seemed to hang on to some of the self-assurance that came from being handsome, choosing better-looking dates than those who had homely avatars. "They thought they had a shot," says Bailenson.If feeling pretty builds confidence, what does height do for you? To find out, Yee recruited 50 volunteers, randomly assigned them to short or tall avatars, then instructed them to divide a virtual pool of $100 with another participant — one player would suggest how to split the pot, and the other could accept or reject the offer, with each person getting nothing if offers were rejected. People with tall avatars (three or four inches taller than the stranger avatar) negotiated more aggressively than the short ones, while short avatars were twice as likely as the tall ones to accept an unfair split — $25 versus $75. Again, the behavior held up in real life. When Yee had the subjects shed their avatars and negotiate face-to-face, sitting down, people who had inhabited tall avatars bargained more aggressively, suggesting unfair splits more often. And participants who had had short avatars accepted less-than-even money more often than the tall ones. How tall the people were themselves became less important, if only temporarily, than the height of their online alter egos. Virtual behavior may even affect real-world health. Stanford graduate student Jesse Fox randomly assigned avatars to 75 volunteers and divided them into three groups: one group watched their look-alike avatars run on treadmills for about five and a half minutes; another group saw their virtual counterparts lounge around; and a third watched avatars who did not look like them, but were of the same age and sex, run on treadmills. A day later, Fox found that participants who watched avatars of their own likeness exercising had themselves exercised an hour more in the intervening 24-hour period than people in the other two groups. (It's worth noting that the volunteers were all Stanford undergraduates, who were likely more active and fitter to start than the average adult.) "What I'm hoping to find out by picking apart these mechanisms is what motivates people and why this works," says Fox. "If you are energized by seeing yourself run, maybe you can put an avatar on the bottom of your computer screen for five minutes and it would persuade you to go to the gym." The possibilities are — virtually — endless. Inhabit buffed-up versions of yourself to lose weight, cuter versions of yourself to gain confidence, or older versions to start putting money away for the future (that last one is being studied at Stanford now). "The most stunning part is how subtle the manipulations are and how difficult they are to detect," says Bailenson, "but how much it affects real life later on." Of course, the effect could potentially work both ways — for good or for bad. "In a therapy setting, we could use these virtual environments to get people to become more confident," says Yee. "But they can also be used in advertising and as propaganda." Before I entered Second Life again I upgraded my avatar to much cuter dimensions. This time I found myself conversing with people instead of logging off. I was more outgoing. Next, I'm considering giving my avatar a cottage by the sea and a job doing charitable work. Maybe some of the positive vibes will rub off into my real life. I'll let you know how it works out. |
Real money lost in a pretend world
|
Avatars and Second Life adultery: A tale of online cheating and real-world heartbreakWhen they married, her mother watched the ceremony remotely, on her laptop, with tears in her eyes. Why wouldn’t she? It was the ultimate expression of commitment, the real thing. Except that it wasn’t real. In truth, “Kira” is the alter ego of 33-year-old Kristen Birkin, a dumpy single mother and pub singer from Nuneaton with mousey cropped hair and low self-esteem. “Nik” is actually Steve Sweet, 47, a mobile phone salesman from Plymouth. He, it is fair to say, looks as unlike Keanu Reeves as it is possible to be.
Kira and Rik, you see, don’t exist. They are avatars, online characters who were created by Kristen and Steve in Second Life, an internet fantasy world, where you can reinvent yourself and embark on the kind of adventures you’ve always dreamed of – including a WAG-style white wedding with 20ft train, and even, as we have seen today, the phenomenon of cyber-adultery. “Kira was everything I should have been,” says Kristen, who has a 12-year-old son. “Beautiful, blonde and slim. My real life was diabolical and I wanted an escape. In Second Life I could be who I wanted to be, and when I met Nik I was in control for the first time in years. I got my life back.” The fact that it was a pretend life didn’t deter Kristen and Steve: for them, the feelings were just as intense as if it had been face to face. They have an album of virtual wedding pictures to prove it, which they pore over as lovingly as any conventional bride and groom. It gets even weirder once you realise that Kristen’s mother logged on to Second Life to see her “daughter” Kira wed Nik and that Steve’s mate was his best man, watching, all choked up, on the sidelines. The bizarre event was the culmination of five months of cyber-dating, during which time Kirsten and Steve’s avatars met in Second Life, struck up a virtual rapport, had virtual sex and moved in together, virtually. And all this time Kristin and Steve were online, making it happen, choreographing their avatars’ every move for up to eight hours a day, despite the fact that each had a real-life partner, who was unaware they were being cuckolded by a cartoon graphic from a glorified 3D computer game. “Neither of us went on Second Life to find a new relationship,” says Kristen. “I had heard Duran Duran were playing a virtual gig and wanted to see them, so when my avatar, Kira, saw Nik, I got her to go up to him and ask if he was Nick Rhodes. He said, ‘Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not’ and it all started from there. “A month later we were logging on every evening at 7pm and not logging off until 4am. Our avatars would do all the stuff normal couples do, like talking and going to clubs or ice skating. I felt as giddy as a teenager, I was walking on air.” Second Life certainly holds a great allure to a great many people; around 15 million have become “residents” since it was founded in 2003, and more are joining every day. Exponents insist it’s not a game – there are no rules. Rather, it is a “synthetic world” with shops and cars, theatres and estate agents, where you communicate with others via instant messaging or voice. It may not be real, but a lot of people take it very seriously indeed: both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama opened campaign offices in this parallel universe. Companies such as Sony, Ikea, BMW and Coca-Cola also have a presence and Reuters and Sky News have bureaux. Advertising is clearly the spur to big business. But for individuals, a major appeal of Second Life is that it’s like real life, only much much better. It’s a world where you don’t have to be dumpy, or from Nuneaton, one where your avatar can look like a model, shop for virtual designer shoes and make virtual friends. You can start a new career, own a big house with a pool and, increasingly, fall in love. But while the house and the heels stay in Second Life, the real people behind the avatars carry their heightened emotions back into their first life - sometimes with devastating consequences for their marriage or relationship. And it seems as though increasing numbers of us are at risk from the spectre of digital adultery. It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that a woman is divorcing her husband after catching him having an online affair. Amy Pollard, 28, discovered her husband’s character in the arms of another female player – having caught him previously, she claimed, having sex with an online call girl character. Pollard has made headlines for divorcing her husband, David, 40, on the grounds of “unreasonable behaviour”. But she surely won’t be the last to do so. Earlier this year, Kristen and Steve appeared on a prescient BBC documentary, Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love. It also featured the extraordinary transatlantic tale of Carolyn, a wife and mother of four from the United States, who became so obsessed with her Second Life relationship that she grew increasingly estranged from both her longsuffering husband, and her angry, confused children. Carolyn has red-blonde hair and is pretty in a homely way, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. The dark-maned avatar she created looks like a Goth stripper, and strides around wearing an S&M bustier and G-string. Her online lover comes from England and is a terrifying, dark-skinned hunk with multiple face-piercings and no shirt. “In Second Life, I tend to just wear jeans and weapons,” explained Elliott, the pasty-faced Londoner with pretensions to black hunkdom. “Today I’ve got a sword and two Uzis. It’s an extension of how I would look if anything went in in real life.” It’s the sort of remark that would have most of us running for the hills, but instead Carolyn and Elliott spent up to 14 hours a day, chatting, flirting and having sex via their avatars. By way of explanation, Caroline told her daughters that her avatar was like Barbie and her boyfriend was just like Ken, albeit that in this X-rated version Ken happens to own an arsenal of AK47s. Meanwhile, husband Lee, an insightful, sympathetic man, was desperate to reclaim his wife from her virtual infatuation, and hovered helplessly in the background in a state of near despair. “Our kids have said to her face that the computer means more to her than they do. It’s terrible to hear your 13-year-old announce that if he hadn’t been born she’d be happier. I love my wife, she’s a beautiful woman, if a little confused. I just want her back.” It all sounds very extreme, but according to Professor Mark Griffiths, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University who has carried out research into the field, it’s surprisingly easy to get emotionally involved online. “The internet is a disinhibiting medium, where people’s emotional guard is down,” he says. “It’s the same phenomenon as the stranger on the train, where you find yourself telling your life story to someone you don’t know, something you wouldn’t dream of doing in your local pub.” The internet feels anonymous, safe and non-threatening – even if it isn’t. People are more trusting and form deep attachments – hence concerns about young people using chatrooms, where they can fall prey to adult agendas. In an environment like Second Life, where your avatar can engage in any behaviour you choose – including sex – many people get carried away. “People fall in love much quicker online generally than in real life, because they reveal more about themselves on a very personal level much sooner than they would do face to face,” says Griffiths. “The whole concept of having an avatar means that you can change everything about yourself; your appearance, your personality, your ethnicity, even your gender. That makes people feel good about themselves, because they’re not being judged on what they look like in real life.” But not everything necessarily goes to plan in Second Life. Carolyn’s avatar got dumped by Elliott’s, because her family commitments made it impossible for her to travel across to the UK to meet him and he no longer wanted to “waste any more time” waiting. Yet despite the break-up – or perhaps because of it – she decided to fly 5,000 miles to London to see if the relationship could be rekindled offline. Elliott came across as quite creepy. Living alone in a tower block and riding a motorbike in black helmet and leathers, he openly admitted that his avatar fell for Carolyn’s because she was a scantily clad babe. His reaction when an apple-pie mom appeared on his doorstep was muted, to say the least. As the cameras recorded Carolyn’s visit, it became excruciatingly clear that the pair had nothing in common, although she would have clearly liked to find some sort of connection. Painfully aware that she had made a terrible mistake, Carolyn left and headed back home to a forgiving Lee, and together they embarked on therapy in an attempt to pick up the pieces of their marriage. Kristen and Steve fared better. After three months of inseperarability in cyberspace, they met, and on discovering that their passion was undiminished, each split up with their partner. Steve ended his relationship of 23 years and put his house on the market within four days. “I hadn’t felt as though I was being unfaithful when I was online, although I did feel a bit uncomfortable with what I was doing,” says Steve. “But once I met Kristen it took the whole thing to another level, so I felt the only decent thing to do was to come clean, because I couldn’t lead a double life.” The couple moved in together and married in May, on the anniversary of their virtual wedding. They also have a baby daughter – called Kira. “We do still go on to Second Life, because we have friends there,” says Kristen. “ But we only do it occasionally. After all, why do I need to chat to an avatar when I’ve got the real deal here at home?” |