Contributed by: kellyseal on Sunday, December 01 2013 @ 10:40 am
Last modified on
Maybe you're not a gamer, but a new study by Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab brings up an interesting conundrum. Researchers found that online avatars (our own virtual representations) could cause us to take on certain personas in the real world. Specifically, sexy avatars are making women objectify themselves in real life.
Researchers immersed 86 participants into a virtual reality world, giving some sexualized avatars (dressed suggestively in short dresses, high heels, and tight shirts) and others conservative, neutral avatars (wearing jeans, jackets, and tennis shoes). When asked about the gaming experience afterwards, the women with sexualized avatars were more likely to talk about their bodies. More than that, if they found themselves physically identifying/ resembling their avatars, they were more likely to believe sexist myths like women are manipulative.
Women with sexualized avatars actually started to see themselves as objects, rather than as human, during the course of the study.
While this study was specific to the relationship between women and avatars in the virtual gaming world, it made me wonder how our online images in general affect our real-life personas, especially in online dating. If you create a profile to project a certain image to potential dates, do you start thinking of yourself in a different way in real life?
Or to take it one step further, think about your social media profiles - Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Do you sometimes post comments or report a specific status to cast yourself in a certain light? For instance, do you post comments about the parties you attend or who you're meeting as opposed to saying "watching television in my pajamas and eating mac and cheese." If you post pictures of yourself in sexy dresses at bars, do you think of yourself differently than if you just post pictures of yourself hiking in your sweats and running shoes?
It's an interesting subject to consider. We are more than what we do in our day to day lives, we are also our online images. Many people we interact with online we don't see that often. Our image of ourselves can be crafted, and in turn make us think that who we are online is really who we are.
So what does this mean for online dating? We all want to present our best selves, so we pick photos that we think make us look sexy or powerful or confident, and we craft profiles to emphasize how we're sexy or confident or successful. This can make a first "real life" meeting nerve-wracking, because you will be compared to your online persona.
One thing is for sure, the virtual world is shaping all of us.