Word: avatars
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...Webb is an avatar of the Democrats' new populism, a theme that has had great resonance on the campaign trail this year. There is some danger here. Populism too often devolves into snake oil: nativism, isolationism and protectionism - none of which are viable positions in a global economy. But we have seen an unprecedented period of untrammeled wealth accumulation in this country, and Webb makes a convincing pitch that the fabric of society is being shredded by greed. "It is not class warfare ... to point out that economic inequities persist," he writes. "In fact, the reverse is true...
...experiment, published in Human Communication Research last year, researchers assessed how an avatar's attractiveness affected human behavior, both online and off. Thirty-two volunteers were randomly assigned an attractive or unattractive avatar (attractiveness was rated by undergrads in a survey beforehand) and instructed to look at them in a virtual mirror for 90 seconds. Then they were asked to interact with other avatars, controlled by the experimenters, in a classroom-like setting. Overall, subjects using good-looking avatars tended to display more confidence, friendliness and extroversion, just as in the real world: they approached avatar strangers within three feet...
...feeling pretty builds confidence, what does height do for you? To find out, Yee recruited 50 volunteers, randomly assigned them to short or tall avatars, then instructed them to divide a virtual pool of $100 with another participant - one player would suggest how to split the pot, and the other could accept or reject the offer, with each person getting nothing if offers were rejected. People with tall avatars (three or four inches taller than the stranger avatar) negotiated more aggressively than the short ones, while short avatars were twice as likely as the tall ones to accept an unfair...
Virtual behavior may even affect real-world health. Stanford graduate student Jesse Fox randomly assigned avatars to 75 volunteers and divided them into three groups: one group watched their look-alike avatars run on treadmills for about five and a half minutes; another group saw their virtual counterparts lounge around; and a third watched avatars who did not look like them, but were of the same age and sex, run on treadmills. A day later, Fox found that participants who watched avatars of their own likeness exercising had themselves exercised an hour more in the intervening 24-hour period than...
Before I entered Second Life again I upgraded my avatar to much cuter dimensions. This time I found myself conversing with people instead of logging off. I was more outgoing. Next, I'm considering giving my avatar a cottage by the sea and a job doing charitable work. Maybe some of the positive vibes will rub off into my real life. I'll let you know how it works...