Well, as you all know, avatars are mostly meant to be merely a representation of the personality of the user in virtual worlds. The avatar itself does not necessarily have to be an exact replica of the user. However, as the years goes by, with the emergence of virtual worlds as a common part of society among the online communities, many people have turned to their avatars as their identical personality. Sometimes, the avatar can be seen as the personality itself of the user behind it. It can be seen that the users are mostly teenagers or even children who plays those online games or even adapting themselves in the online communities through forums and virtual worlds
However, even if they are in the virtual world, the avatars are not as innocent as they appear. For an example, intrusions on privacy would be a problem as the avatars are market to the people in the virtual realm where people would sometimes give up their identity such as age, address, name and more to online stalkers. Also, conversation in the virtual world would be as real in the real world. Thus, users tend to say things in private that people don't get to hear. But, others would not know of the virtual world developers that could 'hear' the conversation between two users, using their avatars.
Besides that, how come there are no avatar whom are disabled or of a certain eclectic skin color? Everything that is done in the real world can also be done in the virtual worlds. For an example, when the users include their race, gender and class which were not supposed to make its way here, could eventually represent the actual personality of the users. Thus, when the new users, especially children, enter into these online communities, they would be easy target for online predators as they have little but basic knowledge of what is going on in the virtual world, and of what types of avatars they should appear. This would cause problems for discrimination as they are pressure by the standards that is conform in the virtual world.
Even so, the users that uses the avatar would think that in order to survive in the long term, they have to think commercially. In other words, users would have to fork out money from their pockets to pay for the various items or even customize accessories for their avatars in order to fit in the communities. Thus, it can be seen that not only the avatars are market to the users but also the clothing and accessories of the avatars that is market to them. Unfortunately, most young users such as teenagers and children still do not have the income to purchase these items for their avatars.
In my opinion, these virtual worlds should not be fully commercialize or in other words, they should not have to pay for the use of avatars as in the virtual world, people can come together around the world to learn more about each other cultures and differences which maybe one day could resolve the war issues around the world. As some would say, it is still true that the best things in life are free.
Dear friends, do you face the same issues when you are online in the virtual world? What's your thought of using avatars in the online communities like Facebook or online forum?
References:
Bartle, R.A, 2009, Security and Privacy and Virtual Worlds, http://www.nis-summer-school.eu/nis09/presentations/02_barlte.pdf, viewed on 15 September 2010.
Squidoo, 2009, Virtual Worlds Avatar, http://www.squidoo.com/virtual-world-avatars#module30554242, viewed on 15 September 2010.
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