Abstract
This paper examines the determinants of friendship between two users in a virtual world who are unaware of each other's real identities. Drawing on theories of homophily, heterophily and propinquity, three virtual world behaviours are analysed: avatar appearance, avatar location, and avatar communication. Data are collected on 179 participants interacting in a novel virtual world. The main results show that: (1) avatars did not tend to form friendships with avatars that are similar in appearance to themselves but did tend to form friendships with avatars that are dressed differently from themselves; (2) in terms of location, the closer an avatar stands to other avatars, the more likely the avatar is to receive a friend invitation; and (3) the fewer words an avatar uses in communication, the more likely the avatar is to receive a friend invitation. This paper contributes to theories of virtual world interaction and to using virtual worlds as a data collection platform.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 73 |
Pages (from-to) | 1397-1416 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | Communications of the Association for Information Systems |
Volume | 34 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jan 2014 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- avatar
- server log
- telemetry
- online community,
- assortativity