Before this assignment, I had never played an online game. So I saw this blog post as a good opportunity to find out what all the hype is all about. The plots of some recent episodes of a couple of the television shows I watch have been centered around online games.
I visited the website for Second Life, and saw that they state on their homepage, "Second Life is a 3D online digital world imagined and created by its residents." I decided to delve further. I signed up for a free account, chose a name and location, and selected an avatar.
One of the first things I noticed were the graphics. They were not very good. We hear in the media about all the improved game graphics, but I did not see anything that really impressed me.
I also noticed the avatar physical characteristics. Many of the choices were very unrealistic. I understand, however, that this is part of the appeal of the public to this game. According to Yee and Bailenson, "attractive individuals tend to be more extroverted and more friendly." They also mention that a player's other online characteristic change based on their choice of avatar and the avatar's physical characteristics. When I played, I did not notice much of a difference between my real life character and my in-game character. I can completely understand, however, that many people would act differently in-game than they do in reality. I, personally, had nothing to gain by changing my character when playing online.
Reality is reality, no matter what people argue. Until the online environment becomes reality, at the end of the day, all you have are hours spent online.
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