Comments on: Second Life and body image: Where all the avatars are above average? http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/second-life-and-body-image-where-all-the-avatars-are-above-average/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:35:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Jon Noring http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/second-life-and-body-image-where-all-the-avatars-are-above-average/comment-page-1/#comment-350727 Jon Noring Mon, 30 Apr 2007 14:03:07 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=6508#comment-350727 If the future of the Internet is 3D Virtual Reality, where web users may visit a web site as an avatar in a 3D environment (rather than viewing a static 2-D page like this blog), the issue of self-appearance is something that will become an interesting social issue. The article cited by David points out not only the downside of the pressure on a person to create a "perfect" avatar, but the upside as well. One sees very few fat avatars in SL, so this reinforces society's RL message to eat healthy and exercise. Of course, even this message gets garbled up at times (e.g., leading to eating disorders). We do live in interesting times... If the future of the Internet is 3D Virtual Reality, where web users may visit a web site as an avatar in a 3D environment (rather than viewing a static 2-D page like this blog), the issue of self-appearance is something that will become an interesting social issue.

The article cited by David points out not only the downside of the pressure on a person to create a “perfect” avatar, but the upside as well. One sees very few fat avatars in SL, so this reinforces society’s RL message to eat healthy and exercise. Of course, even this message gets garbled up at times (e.g., leading to eating disorders).

We do live in interesting times…

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