The Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital

Yee et al. have carried out a very interesting study in which they used the precise measurements available to them in the virtual environment of Second Life to document aspects of body language used in physical communication.  As a part of this study they looked at Inter-personal distance and mutual gaze. 

In the physical world, male-male dyads have significantly more distance between them when interacting than male-female or female-female dyads.  In short - men stand further apart when speaking to each other.  This can be altered depending on age, ethnicity, culture and affiliation. 

Mutual gaze refers to the number of times during a conversation that two people look at each other.  Once again, males tend to make less gaze contact than females in the physical world.  This is also used to signal that someone is too close during physical contact.  If someone is invading your personal space we signal to them by glancing away that we require more room.

The findings suggested that the norms in the physical world are significantly correlated to the norms in the virtual world.  Males tend to require more personal space.  The closer two people were, the less they looked at each other, and within a given distance, more eye contact typically meant a dialogue.

The authors suggest that this means we can use virtual worlds to study social concepts.  This would allow more flexible studies, a wider target pool and easy repeatability.  They also acknowledge that this study is based on only a single virtual world so the findings here may not be represented in others.

Looking at the results I find it interesting that we use the same mannerisms in virtual worlds as we do in the physical.  The more I read the more I discover that the veil between the real and the virtual is disintegrated quickly.    We put so much time and effort into building our virtual selves, and yet we are still caught in the same patterns of behaviour as we are in the offline world.  As virtual worlds become more and more advanced we find that starting with the familiar grounds us.

If that is true then perhaps this will all change quickly.  If we look at the example of texting it is easy to see how quickly things can change.  Emails were originally short letters and many in the business world will still tell you that keeping things formal is the best way to go.  Yet as more and more people email and text with greater regularity, we find that the language changes, those familiar norms we began with were altered.

If anything, life in the virtual world changes far faster than that in the physical.  It will be interesting to see what comes next.

Yee, N., Bailenson, J. N., Urbanek, M. , Chang, F.,; & Merget, D. (2007). The unbearable likeness of being digital: the persistences of nonverbal social norms in online virtual environments. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(1), 115 - 121.