Can your avatar change you?

EngageExplore

Jul 3

Ever been a half-elf rogue saving the world online while procrastinating homework? Turns out, that avatar might be changing you IRL.

If a person is online but not gaming, research shows that our online personas are similar to our real identities — with mild augmentations, of course. Photo filters, to make our skin look smoother. Posts that talk about our successes more than our failures. There is social pressure to look good on Instagram, but most of us paint self-portraits like the court painters from days of yore: flattering, but still recognizable.

Gaming is different. When we enter the anonymous world of online gaming, our avatars may be a silver-haired elf, a cyborg, or a tree-creature hybrid. An increasing number of researchers have been investigating the effects digital gameplay has on our identities. Recent studies find that entering the fantasy world as an avatar is not just useful for play — it can change who we fundamentally are offline.

The escapist danger of avatars

Avatars are not without their dangers. Embracing our avatars too enthusiastically can lead to mental health problems, increasing the chances of developing a gaming addiction or Internet gaming disorder (IGD).

The authors of a systematic review of avatar identification in gaming warn that those who suffer from low self-esteem or social anxiety are at the highest risk. The anonymity and controlled environment of an online gaming group may be the place where some people with low self-esteem feel most at home, but this increases the temptation to pour more and more of their identities into a fictitious persona. In this case, strengthening identities through gaming comes at the cost of stunting real-life growth. As the review’s authors put it, “The augmented escapism into a virtual world leads to increased social withdrawal in the real world and less learning experiences in social and emotional situations.”

We can, as it turns out, be sucked in too far.

This escapist danger is explored in sci-fi stories like Black Mirror’s “Striking Vipers” and “Playtest.” (In “Striking Vipers,” two friends lose touch with reality through an immersive VR game that affects their personal lives.) But although the rise of immersive VR technology has its pitfalls, isn’t entering an avatar and “walking a mile in someone’s shoes” the very definition of empathy — or at least a serious step toward cultivating it? Couldn’t the potential benefits of identifying with our avatars outweigh potential harms?

Avatars can help us improve

Dr. Sri Kalyanaraman thinks the answer to this question is a resounding “yes.” As a professor of journalism at the University of Florida, director of the Media Effects and Technology Lab, and co-founder of the VR for Social Good Initiative, Dr. Kalyanaraman has spent the last decade researching how we can use immersive media platforms to improve the human spirit and condition. In our interview, he described multiple scenarios in which “slipping into the shoes” of an avatar generates empathy and helps us to behave in more prosocial ways.

Since the early 2000s, researchers have been investigating the Proteus effect, a shape-shifting ability observed in virtual worlds. Dr. Daria Kuss, professor of psychology at Nottingham Trent and expert in cyberpsychology, defines the Proteus effect as ”the phenomenon where the player-observed features of virtual avatars can influence the in-game behavior or attitudes of gamers.” Evidence is now emerging that in-game behavior changes sometimes continue to manifest even after we exit a virtual space.

Avatars can change our lives by providing inspiration. Dr. Kalyanaram described to me how VR avatars may help people achieve their personal fitness goals: “If you see your avatar exercising and doing well and getting fit, then that motivates you to actually go and become fitter in the real world.”

Avatars that represent an “other” can increase our empathy towards underrepresented groups. In the ongoing virtual reality experience Project Shell, participants take on the avatar of a sea turtle. The lab employs haptic feedback through backpacks so that participants can actually feel the plastic and debris hitting them as they swim. Following the game, the researchers have found that not only do participants display more empathy towards sea turtles, but their intention to donate to conservation efforts increases too.

Avatars that represent our dark sides can be therapeutic. In the study “Customizing Your Demons,” Dr. Kalyanaraman and his colleagues found that subjects who created and then destroyed an avatar representing their anxiety experienced a reduction in anxiety after. This virtual space provided participants with a safe space to face their demons, battle them, and win.

Still, it is important to avoid generalizing about avatars. As Dr. Kalyanaram warns, the effects in all these studies “are very contextual.” We must remember that “individual perception and cognition may impact user behaviors,” according to Dr. Kuss, “rather than time spent gaming.” Everyone is different. Given this, Dr. Kuss recommends that gamers employ “strategies such as mindfulness, increasing awareness of the present moment and self-reflection” to counteract any undesirable effects of avatars on how we think and behave.

There is always going to be a dark side when it comes to technology (and most other things), but awareness of potential pitfalls and our own moral agency is a good safeguard. By heeding Socrates' injunction to “know thyself,'' we can develop more awareness of our own strengths and weaknesses, using that knowledge to encourage the better angels of our nature.

Next time you load into your favorite game, ask yourself: Who am I playing…and who am I becoming?

Amelia Rasmusen Buzzard is a freelance writer with bylines in Business Insider, WORLD Magazine, The American Spectator, Ekstasis, and Fairer Disputations. She graduated in 2021 from Hillsdale College summa cum laude with degrees in philosophy and German and currently resides in upstate New York.