Just Like Me Only
Better was an interesting article to say the least. I learned about Second Life, which I had never heard of before and also some
history behind the term 'avatar'. Avatar
is a word in today's world that is fairly common. There are internet and video game avatars and
when I first heard this word, I just accepted it for what it meant and never
thought about its' origin. This article
stated that the word 'avatar' came from Sanskrit and it was used to describe
gods when they visited the world in mortal form. Today, "the avatar is a form of social
representation of the self" (p. 1).
It was nice to learn about where this word originally came from. It definitely surprised me.
The whole Second Life
idea was very interesting to me and the whole time I was reading about it, I
kept thinking about the movie, Surrogates,
starring Bruce Willis. In this movie,
people live life through their 'surrogate selves' or avatars while their actual
bodies are controlling what's going on from a 'stem chair'. Although the Second Life idea isn't quite as advanced, it has the same premise behind
it as people get to choose how other people get to them. It's amazing to me that so many people would get
into creating an avatar. It is something
that I have definitely overlooked. The
results of the study also shocked me, as Western media beauty standards were
the most dominant. Many people want this
perceived look of perfection that we have all come to know from the Western
media. I was just surprised that so many
different nationalities also saw this as the most "desirable" way to
look.
Overall, this article was enlightening. I learned a lot of new information that I was
completely unaware of.
I too was considering the issue of alternative lives and alternative images that we often portray when using technology. The ability to create an alternative self that is portrayed in the digital world in credible and frightening at the same time. There is an ease that is given to the user to create this alternative self, which I sometimes feel is the projected self they are either aspiring to become or that they wish they could actually emulate. In either case the ease with which it is to create such an identity is concerning in that the thought to create and sustain such an identity is based on the immediate fulfillment of a personal sensation of projecting idealized traits to which the individual does not currently have. If an individual does not really truly have such qualities, but there is extreme ease in making them up, l then people are not really responsible for what happens in these virtual worlds. My concern is the symbiotic relationship that was discussed in the past readings, such that the interaction between the virtual self and real self are such that one may uncharacteristically affect the other and to what degree, either good or bad, remains to be seen.
ReplyDeleteNice post SCbaseball. I was very intrigued by your comparison of the movie Surrogates, to avatar websites such as Second Life. Although it seems far-fetched, I can envision something like that movie coming to fruition in the near future. I think people view the benefits of having an Avatar as having interpersonal interaction from the comfort of their home. I also think people gain confidence which they otherwise lack when they can create an Avatar and have it represent their perception of self. However, while I see some benefits to conducting social interactions over the internet, I can't help but be somewhat saddened by the meteoric rise of avatar website like second life. I feel their is a certain genuine quality that cant be quantified that can only be experienced through face-to-face interaction. I feel the rise of these types of websites says some negative things about our society which many young people neglect to take into account.
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