Office Avatars Are Kind of Creepy--And Inevitable
A huge challenge when communicating online is our inability to see each other as we would when we look across a table at each other. After all, in our most basic biology it's how we create emotional, social and mental connections to other people. Instead we must rely on either webcam images, still photos or computer-generated images designed to be our stand-ins, known as avatars. As cool as the technology might be, avatars creep me (and a lot of other people) out. We'd best get over it.
The NY Times recently ran an article on the leaps made in developing these surrogates. This has long-term impact on how we'll work, learn and socialize over the coming years. Like it or not, here are some things you need to know:
- The basic idea is solid. The psychology behind using avatars is simple--people connect better with visual representations of people than without them. We are biologically programmed to respond with more attention to the human face and image than to voices or data. As a result, if there's "someone"to connect to (even an obvious cartoon image) we can pay better attention and actually start to interact in ways we couldn't, or wouldn't, previously.
- The technology isn't quite there yet, but it's getting better. Just as computer animation gets more and more lifelike, the quality of these surrogates gets better. Better, but not perfect. They are still approximations of people- not replacements for them, despite what filmmakers and the odd gaming geek would have you believe. Here in Chicago there's a morning news anchor (neither my attorneys nor my mother would approve of my naming her in this forum) who I swear is an avatar: shiny straight hair, slightly oversized eyes, racially unidentifiable skin tone and perfect teeth. She's probably a very nice person, but she doesn't look real. I go elsewhere for information. On my worst days I wonder if she's a person who looks like she just stepped out of a Sims game, or is she the first avatar news reader? The day is coming when it will be harder and harder to tell them apart.
- Our brains don't much like the idea but we appear to be getting used to it. Recent research shows that our brains usually know when to filter out information and when they don't. For example, we react to information that comes at us on television differently than we do when we're in the same room as a speaker. We know that it's "on TV" and we process that data in more passive ways. The same is true of avatars. Recent studies in robotics suggest that it only takes a few interactions with robots to begin to treat them like people, much like the crazy cat lady across the street thinks of Mr Jinks as a real baby. This makes for good interaction, but is it healthy? This also appears to be a generational issue. Those of us raised on dystopian images of Hal from 2010 seem to have more of a distrust of these than the younger generation. Does that bode well for their ability to work with those tools or is it a sign of doom for their ability to process and separate manipulated information?
- How do you build trust in an inherently manipulative environment? A key point in John Tierney's article is that the design of avatars is becoming a science, and (as if some of us need to be creeped out even more) they take it seriously. Can you make someone like your avatar better by manipulating things like skin tone, age, eliminating scars and asymmetry? Maybe, but then if your image is too perfect, is it really you? Politicians, corporate spokespeople and others are finding out what makes people connect or avoid certain onscreen images and using it to create avatars that are inherently more likely to inspire positive emotions.
I'd love to hear what you think... post away and let's hear what you think.
Read more:
- I, Telecommuter: telepresence robots and human connections
- Virtual meetings are like broccoli-8 tips for better virtual project meetings
- How to make virtual conferencing work: 10 steps