Virtual and Mobile Satisfaction (**careful with kiddies around)

More things you can do with your avatar: get satisfacion. Run a romantic virtual/real life. More specifically, you can flirt, court, go on date, cuddle and even have sex.

-Crazy? -Maybe. But it’s real:

IMVU integrated their IM avatars to allow their users to push further their chats into virtual social interactions. Instead of just having a verbal interaction, IMVU enable users to take the “traditional” chat and run it over a cup of coffee on the virtual “Starbucks” or smooch under the moonlight sky.

-Naive? -Maybe, but I’m sure you’ll agree that most people would choose this IM to flirt/ look-for-a-date/ have cyber-sex rather than just to chat with their best friend…

On the mobile sphere, Digital Chocolate apparently targets teenagers and their mobile phones with its new dating video game. According to its last announcement, with “The Hook Up: AvaFlirting” we could create a mobile avatar and flirt with other peoples’ cell phone avatars. No word on how this is going to work, so we’ll have to be patient…

The app that takes it to the verge is “Naughty America: The Game”, a multiplayer online dating game where “players can create their own character and explore an exciting, sexy, and vibrant world. Escape from your day-to-day life by creating a Naughty Persona and interact live with other players from around the world.”

What’s so special you’re asking? Well, while you can have some “ordinary” experiences of a virtual multiplayer world of chatting with people, shopping for clothes or having other outdoor activities, you can also try the “sex mode”! This mode allows you to try sex positions with your avatar partner, turn on the webcam, “or just visit the voyeur club and get a sneak peak at someone else's wild side”.

Very creative, kinky and daring. Really. What I don’t like in these apps is the potential to replace (to a certain extent) a normal social interaction. There’s no harm in meeting a potential date over an online dating service, over any IM jabber or flirt through SMS. There is no wrong in having a place to express ourselves and our fantasies more easily and freely either. But these apps exist in an evasive sphere, not totally real and not totally imaginary. They provide an alternative experience which is easier and safer to dating (in the real world) which many find as very stressing, intimidating and exhausting. By providing a detour, many just don’t need to cope with/ face their difficulties in order to get satisfaction.

Would next step be feeling embraced to initiate a small talk with people without having technology as a mediator? Will we (need to) hum/ scream out loud Rolling Stones' "I can't get no satisfaction"? ;-)

Comments

[Stowe Boyd]

Check out this piece: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/06/mmo_sex_please_.html.

Your comments about the irreality of on-line fooling around are interesting, relative to people in close proximity. But those far away may bot have the opportunity of f2f interaction.

And the darker side of online avatar/game related sex -- bondage games, rape, and so on -- raises serious ethical questions. Not so much because of whether it should be allowed, but what sorts of effects does it have on the players, outside the game?

[Daniel Taylor]

We clearly haven't figured out which types of social interactions are appropriate for which types media.

The avatar/sex example may be far more extreme, but it does pose a question. How frequently do we use e-mail, IM and other technologies as a way to avoid F2F and telephone interactions.

Stowe makes a good point, but my concern is much more immediate. E-mail comes to mind, and it's impact is the degradation in human interaction that has already resulted from the technologies that we've created.

[Xen Mendelsohn (Dolev)]

Dan, I totally agree. Whenever we find the F2F too intimidating or awkward, we avoid it and communicate through a less involving technology (IM, e-mail, SMS…).
What comes to my mind is those annoying friendship chain-letters as the best example of how our (healthy) human interactions have been suffering from a serious reduction when we think we can manage a friendship that way…

[Shona]

I would like to say that I recommend these services. I am a very shy and akward person and so for me meeting people in life didn't happen easily.
However, I met my boyfriend in IMVU and we have now been together for almost 8 months. We are very happy together and love each other very much. Without these kinds of online services, my relationship with him would never have been possible.