CLASS 13: Identity in the Context of Virtual Worlds

Someone’s “identity” in a virtual world is an important aspect of the whole virtual experience. People make the choice of whether they want to identify themselves on this virtual world as themselves in real life or totally different. Some people might not want to be themselves on these virtual worlds for many reasons but I think for one main reason is because they want to be someone they wished they were and this virtual world allows them to do that.  For example if a guy wishes he was bigger and muscular but he cannot achieve that in real life he might make his avatar that dream body he was looking for.

As I experienced using Second Life it was much easier to talk to people when you were a female. That was one of our assignments to change our identity by altering our gender, race, and physical attributes. I noticed that when I changed my avatar to a female I was approached by others and conversations were easier to start. When I was a male avatar it was so much harder to stat a conversation with someone and people were rude when you started to talk to them on the chat. So I believe that gender has a huge impact in these virtual worlds when it comes to starting conversations with others.

I believe that many people can benefit from these virtual worlds not just for educational purposes. Virtual worlds can benefit people that are usually very shy or anti-social. Those types of people might be afraid to approach people in real life and start conversation or even make friends. By using virtual worlds they can do those things without ever really encountering someone face to face. This can be some type of therapy for those types of people because by interacting with people virtually that might ease the pain of actually doing it in the real world.

When it comes to using your own identity in these virtual worlds I believe it is what I would do. I do not have a problem using it in these worlds because I am who I am and I am proud of my identity and do not care if someone makes fun of it on these virtual worlds. Although some people do care about what others think about them so they make themselves flawless. They are afraid to face what people have to say about their appearance.

I believe that the topic of “identity” in virtual worlds is a huge issue for people. I learned by being in this class and experimenting the different virtual worlds that other people can be very cruel and mean and that people change their true “identity” for that reason.  Your “identity” also makes a huge impact in whether people will talk to you or not like I mentioned females seem to have an easier time talking to people and at times get approached. It is just amazing how important someone’s “identity” is in these virtual worlds and it also impacts how much they enjoy the whole virtual experience.

Here are my favorite 4 screenshot that I took during class with my avatar altered in different ways. 

Here I spoke about what "identity" means in the virtual worlds. I also included 4 of my favorite screenshots I took over the semester.  It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc