Second Life: Personality - Identity – Avatars Luc-Philippe Paulemon Master of Science in Instructional Technology, New York Institute of Technology USA [email protected]

Abstract: Avatars, created by Second Life users become the agent that represents the

creator in the virtual world. As people interact in the real life, Second Life avatars build the social relationship through their unique representation. The purpose of this paper is to examine how users interact with avatars and why users create them as their identities in the virtual world. The findings can help us understand the psychological building blocks that make our online social presence believable. Colleges are examining the full capability of Second Life and students are linking the virtual world with first life by talking about it and sharing their experiences with one another. This interesting transformation is what can be researched as part of examining the psychological building blocks of online social presence.

Introduction Second Life (SL) is a virtual world that allows users to interact in a 3D environment. The SL software allows you to connect to the servers that contain all of the settings and features of a user’s profile. SL provides great potentials for educators, students, and university administration such as admissions and student life offices. One of the most interesting features of Second Life is the ability to create “avatars” that truly represent user’s persona in the virtual world. SL has invested time and effort in making this process creative. Users can relate with one another and feel as if they are communicating in real life. The first reaction when users (who know each other in first life) get together for a second life session is how similar or close to similar each avatar looks to the creator in real life as was the case in a class project. As more and more people join SL and as the functions for creating avatars become more advance the boundaries between the first life and second life become blurry. Behavior that is supposed to be reserved for the face-to-face interaction spill into the virtual world and vice versa. Translating an aspect of one's identity from one realm to another often strengthens it. You are testing it, refining it, in a new environment. So if it's beneficial to bring online behaviors offline, then it's also beneficial to bring offline behaviors online. Cyberspace gives a person the opportunity to try out his usual f2f behaviors and methods of self expression in new situations, with new people (Suler 2000). Comparisons between behavior in second and first life become part of our conversation on a daily basis. The history of the avatar stems from the concept of what Steven Johnson (1997) calls the “personal agent (p. 176)” avatars that perform tasks and the “intelligent agent (p. 178)” avatars that adjust to your everyday activity. SL users can view themselves as agents in a virtual world by which they would have the ability to disguise themselves from the reality and take on a persona contrary to the first life. These elements are the psychological building blocks that make our online social presence believable. An attempt to demonstrate examples of this unique interaction will be presented in this paper.

What is an avatar? In modern terminology an avatar is referred to as a representation of the user; a much easier definition to remember given that the word derives from the Sanskrit word Avatara, which literally translates as "descent," specifically, a deliberate descent by a god into the land of mortals, usually for the purpose of destroying evil or

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leading the righteous down the right path (Egen, 2005). In Second Life (SL) it doesn’t matter what it is, an avatar can be an animal, a thing, or an object related to you. Avatars are also accepted as still images (usually of a character or symbol), however we will focus on the more advance form of avatars we see in SL (see Figure 1). As in the case of SL I would describe the more advance forms of avatars as “controllable avatars” which implies that the user has full control of the avatar and has the ability to make it do what you request. Earlier forms of modern avatars were referred to as the “personal agent” and the “intelligent agent”; where the term “agent” stands for avatar. Steven Johnson refers to avatars as agents and provides the following definition: The new interface paradigm brings us closer to Olimpia’s glassy stare: instead of space, those zeros and ones are organized into something closer to an individual, with a temperament, a physical appearance, an aptitude for learning – the computer as personality, not space. We call these new creatures – these digital “personalities” – agents (1997, p. 176). As the internet and the personal computer were evolving digital agents such as The Knowledge Navigator for Macintosh, the Ask Jeeves butler on askjeeves.com, or Lycos the dog on lycos.com were common “personal agents” that collected data and returned the value in the form of something users can relate to; a dog, a butler, an object. For example, if you are searching for a site the Lycos dog would find it for you or if you need to find a restaurant just ask Jeeves. This concept was widely understood by many users. The “intelligent agents” are more advance because these agents are designed to monitor your everyday progress and provide assistance based on your activity. So for example, if you have a pattern of emptying your desktop twice a week, the intelligent agent will eventually ask you if you want it to empty the trash for you. These form of avatars help to create the foundation for newer “controllable avatars” that bring us into the realms of virtual worlds such as SL. 1

Figure 1. Examples of static avatars. (Source: http://www.avatarist.com/)

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3 Figure 2. Example of SL avatars. (Source: 1)http://www.secondlifemarketingtips.com, 2) http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/07/21/virtual_marketing, 3) http://phasinggrace.blogspot.com/2007/07/virtual-trust-in-your-second-life.html)

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Social Presence in SL Once again we are experiencing a new way to not only create a “look alike”, but to communicate in a form that we agree upon. In SL the three most important aspects of the program is creating your avatar, communicate with others, and finding new islands of interest. The psychologist John Short developed the Social Presence Theory and conducted studies of different media to see how users experienced each other as “real people”. For example, he used the telephone to examine the relationship between different users. More contemporary definitions of the social presence theory include individuals’ ability to perceive others through their mediated interactions (Collins & Murphy, 1997); the degree of “tangibility and proximity” of others within a communicative situation (McLeod, Baron, & Marti, 1997); and participants’ abilities to project themselves both socially and emotionally in a community (Rourke et al., 2001). As in the case of SL and increased attention to other online communication, the concept of social presence can be viewed as more complex than originally understood. Now, social presence can be identified with computer-mediated communications and distance education (cyberloom, 2008). Many universities and colleges utilize SL to examine how teaching, learning, and communicating is possible in the virtual world setting. For example, Aaron Delwiche, assistant professor at Trinity University in San Antonio conducts his classes in SL. Terdiman (2004) observed professor Delwiche conducting his SL class session at Trinity University in San Antonio and concluded: It's not unusual for teachers and students to use an online environment like a chat room to meet. But Delwiche and a few other college professors are taking advantage of Second Life's fully threedimensional virtual world and are the first to teach classes in a world where the students can fly, change body types at will and build fantastical structures that can float in the sky. Second Life's "online environment tends to be a little less stuffy than the real-world classroom," said Delwiche. "Suddenly (the students) got to adopt these ridiculous avatars and interact with each other in a completely different context. They had a lot more fun." Many professors like Delwiche are taking advantage of the communicating possibilities of SL and realized that it helps students learn in a whole new fashion. Conducting this style of teaching opens the door to new ways of learning and helping students engage in something that probably is considered more fun to them than the conventional class room.

First Life and Second Life The purpose of SL is to create a world where the boundaries of the first life become non-existent and avatars represent people in a digital social environment. SL allows people to experience interaction that is different than face to face because most of us tend to separate our online lives with our off line lives (Suler, 2000). As a result we have online friends, communities, and habits and in real life we have another set of friends, communities, and practices (Suler, 2000). Regardless of what we may want to believe we are constantly plugging and unplugging ourselves in and out of reality without realizing it. Suler pointed out that there are 6 different ways we integrate our offline activities and our online activities in our lives: 1. Telling online companions about one’s offline life. 2. Telling offline companions about one’s online life. 3. Meeting online companions in-person 4. Meeting offline companions online. 5. Bringing online behavior offline 6. Bringing offline behavior online As in the case of SL it may take a while before meeting friends or joining a group. In these types of cases it takes longer to begin telling friends about offline lives.

Avatars for the class

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I was enrolled in an online class at a university located on the U.S. north eastern region. Most of the participants are corporate or organizational trainers, who never met before in the first life. Several sessions of this class were offered in SL. After registering, my first assignment in SL was to create an avatar and visit an island that would introduce us to SL. Before creating my avatar, I took a long look at myself and tried to pick and choose specific features from the avatar selection that would look like me as much as possible. I decided to select attire that represents what I would normally wear on a day to day basis and I was amazed at the vast options available for editing facial features, body mass, and height. I spent approximately one hour creating my avatar and the end result was good. After meeting my classmates for the first time I observed that in SL our avatars resembled each other very closely. It was interesting to notice that we all were able to link the features of our avatar in SL with the features of ourselves in first life. We spent some time reacting to this since it was for the most part our first time using SL. In addition to observing our presence in SL, we spent time understanding the interface so that we can act out our emotions and communicate to each other. It was fascinating to be able to laugh, dance, and point when we needed to. For example, when our professor wanted us to gather around in a particular location she would whistle or say over here and we knew that we had to stop what we were doing to pay attention to what she had to say. In addition I observed that when we meet in first life we were re-examining how similar we looked in SL as if SL was our first life. It was interesting to see how we were comparing our behavior in SL with first life. SL by-passes many of the natural reservations and constraints that we would have in ‘real life’. It intensifies communications and can convey a sense of ‘closeness’ with others through the use of avatars and text. Second Life does convey a strong sense of social presence that readily puts people at ease. This is a peculiar phenomenon considering we are fully aware we are communicating via the artificial facial expressions and body language of avatars. Sometimes these avatars are striped tigers, exotically dressed humans or creatures that are part human and part anima (Cyberloom, 2008). In one of our activities we were asked to visit the Spaceflight Museum and the Science School and we took snapshots of our activities. Figure 3 and 4 are two examples:

Figure 3. My avatar visits the Space Flight Museum

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Figure 4. My classmate’s avatar visits the Science School in Second Life.

Future of Second Life In conclusion SL has played a major role in redefining how we communicate with each other. It is also easy to conclude that SL is great for educators, students, and university administration such as admissions and student life offices. With the ability to create “controllable avatars” that truly represent user’s persona, SL can become personal and interactive. As more universities, organizations, and other users join SL there will be a variety of different interaction occurring on a daily basis that is worthy of observation. Classes are able to experience learning from a different perspective when using SL and the creativity in learning is exposed by students. The sense of community and common identity is created by SL’s ability to unite all users synchronously. The feeling of belonging at the same place and same time makes the experience real and justified. Furthermore, directing our attention to how individuals behave before and after SL can pave the way to many new findings about human psychology and social presence. It is possible to challenge the idea that there are no borders between virtual world and the real world because it is all ready occurring with real time and on demand technology over the internet. For example it would be interesting to test SL on mobile units just like instant messaging systems; AOL, MSN, My Space Chat, and etc. It would also be a good idea to imagine a SL device that is specially made for virtual world interaction. Allowing SL to be synchronous with our lives is the first step to erasing the boundary between second life and first life. The possibilities are endless and as more people research SL, we will begin to see more and more improvements that will continue to support the future of SL.

References Collins, M., & Murphy, K. L. (1997). Development of communications conventions in instructional electronic chats. Journal of Distance Education, 12(1-2), 177-200. Egen, S. (2005). The history of avatars, Retrieved March 13, 2008 from: http://www.imediaconnection.com/global/5728.asp?ref=http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/6165.asp Johnson, S. (1997). Interface culture: How new technology transforms the way we create and communicate. New York: Basic Books

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McLeod, P. L., Baron, R. S., & Marti, M. W. (1997). The eyes have it: Minority influence in face-to-face and computer-mediated group discussion. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(5), 706-718. Pearson, C. (2008). Social presence theory & Second Life, Retrieved March 12, 2008 from http://cyberloom.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/social-presence-theory-second-life/ Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing social presence in asynchronous textbased computer conferencing. Journal of Distance Education, 14(2), 50-71. Suler, J. R. (2000,). Identity management in cyberspace, Retrieved March1 , 2008 from: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/identitymanage.html Terdiman, D. (2004). Campus life comes to Second Life, Retrieved March 17, 2008 from: http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2004/09/65052

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