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September 11, 2006, 04:02 PM ET
In Virtual Worlds, Personal Space Still Matters
People who create characters in the virtual world Second Life may wish to feel unburdened of their bodies or unencumbered by the realities of face-to-face communication. But most of Second Life’s digital citizens still share fairly traditional views on the concept of personal space, according to researchers at Stanford University.
The researchers watched one-on-one interactions among about 1,600 avatars and found that most of the characters observed basic, if unspoken, customs regarding how to position themselves during conversation. Just as in the real world, male avatars tend to stand farther apart from each other than female characters do, according to Nature And when one avatar moves uncomfortably close to another, chances are that the character whose personal space is being violated will avert his or her gaze. —Brock Read
Categories: Virtual-Worlds, Research
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