This article, “How Second Life Affects Real Life” is written by Kristina Dell from Time Magazine. Kristina Dell is a freelance writer from New York who writes about business, education, law, and sports for Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, msnbc.com, and Reader’s Digest. Kristina talks about the first time she was on Second Life and how all she wanted to do was run away from everyone because she wasn’t sure how to use the game, and her ugly avatar made her uncomfortable to be around other people. She starts to quote studies done at Stanford University‘s Virtual Human Interactions Lab by Jeremy Bailenson. After doing experiments and running a bunch of studies, they concluded that people that had good looking avatars and had good experiences in the virtual world, have had better experiences in real life, becoming more confident and outgoing. “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.”
I agree with the research that has been done. I know a lot of quiet people that play these games. They told me they play because they feel like they can be anyone and anything in the game and that gives them a lot of confidence because they may not like who they are in real life, but having people come up to them, and compliment them in the game, makes them feel better about themselves in real life. I wish I could get more into video games and virtual worlds, but I have never been very good at them and could not get into them.