How "Immersive" Are You?

I think my in-world persona has developed over the 3 years I've been in SL through all the interaction I've had with places, people and things. So it's pretty immersive. But I get the odd days when the experience feels a bit flat and I'm not so immersed and I just end up walking around my home in mouselook or something then log out and do something else.

I have played about with alts occasionally, including - a male one, a comical creature and a female quite similar to the normal me but none of them have given me the same feeling of involvement. My chief alt, X7 Mubble, though, is purely for practical and test purposes and spends most of its time as a black ball.

for me, i think my dollie more represents ME than me trying to make myself be a part of a 2D world. i just exist, and use the avatar as a tool for communication.

Hi, I'm pretty new here but very fascinated by the immersion aspect of being inworld. For me, my avatar is essentially the me I am in rl. It is my being with a suit that allows me to navigate an alternate world. I am finding that my avi is really more who I am than I can ever possibly manifest in rl. In rl limitations such as time and money prevent me from embracing many of my numerous sides. Inworld I can spend time as each of the many different people I am inside, and easily try on some new ones to see what they're like.

As time seems to shrink inworld I can also cover more ground of what I'm after. Show up at a club and it's dead, seconds later my avi self can be at another. Hear from a friend when I'm continents away and seconds later, we're together. The accelerated pace that life evolves at inworld also allows me to meet so many more people than I ever could in rl, and I love that! My avi feels like a tool that literally gives me wings, so I can spend most of my time actually doing what I'm interested in rather than spending time at things like traveling that rl often takes to accomplish something.

My avi also lets me present who I really am. In rl we can't easily compensate for the little quirks that have been given to our human form. I get to present my best self. Something like being "too short" or "too tall" can have an effect on encounters with others in rl. Here, we can be the height we feel we are. I think this even serves to strengthen connections here in SL as we get to immediately see who the person is, or is at that moment. This seems to give a more pure experience as we communicate and connect with others here inworld.

So if I seem immersed, I am. And loving it!

Calliope

I'm pretty much me regardless. Even when I am so immersed in SL so that I block out everything happening in RL, that is still just another aspect of "me". I can do the exact same thing reading a good book - you can come right up to me in RL and talk and I won't hear it. And given that a lot of SL, for me, is to specially escape and forget about RL crap, I'll intentionally get even more immersed in whatever I'm doing in SL - but there are still limits.

Creative people are generally immersive - dontcha think?

And aspies/auties...which may be why all the above find SL a second home.

I wanted to be immersive until I found the only thing people would talk to me about was how many parameters sensor takes or how they're better than me

Immersive can also when you are totally alone, Yumi.

It isn't dependent on others necessarily.

I used to immerse myself fully in SL, but I found that a bit messy and made laundry day a chore, so now I just play SL naked.

it's immersive, in that my av looks a lot like the RL me. Yet, it's not, because what I like most about SL is the ability to exceed the limits of the real me. I would like to be able to pretend I'm RPing but I already know from twenty-plus loooong years online (yes, pre Net in my case) that my underlying "real me" is an unhidable, undisguisable voice.

Pictures please.

Yumi, you are without a doubt the Joe Btfsplk of Second Life.

(For you youngsters, Joe was a character in the "Li'l Abner" comic strip by Al Capp. He was misfortune and misery personified, and always walked around with a black thundercloud over his head.)

We must be youngsters - that rubbish was read in Noah's Ark

I tend to have deeper interactions/conversations/relationships when I'm human or anthro, but every interaction with another avatar is an interaction between two real people with real thoughts and emotions sitting in front of computers.

And be a male, female, dragon, wolf, phoenix, robot, pixie, mermaid...

Too funny!

I follow a similar approach. I would classify myself as "light RP" as well. Even if I'm a dragon in the moment, I'm still reflecting some facet of myself... albeit perhaps one that might never see the light of day in RL.

Hey, if Noah lived to be 950 years old, why shouldn't we?

Rubbish?! That stuff was a cultural icon.

I think you are confusing "immersion" with "inability to draw the line between fact and fiction."


I go to see Avatar and have 3 hours of glorious immersion, but I don't confuse a movie with reality. You can become immersed in a story without losing the distinction between reality and fantasy.

I am my AV, until I begin to know someone else from RL, then I becom mre the RL me. When I first started SL, I used to feel guilty about logging off if *I* was not at home in SL and in bed or reading a book on the sofa. Now the RL me can logoff, whenever. So I am becoming less attached to my AV.

Also, in many ways, *my* SL life is so much better than my RL life. Some drink to forget, I am in SL to forget my RL limitations. I know that sounds very wussy, but it's true.

Mi.... Kim Trefusis

Not by choice, I assure you..

using SL as an escape from RL was true for me also, until recently. i no longer have anything to escape from. so now i sometimes think I am only in SL because that is often the only way i can connect with my new RL sweetie pie and certain friends i have made. i am trying to get back into building to allow SL to re-become the arsty, exploration eye candy that it once was for me, which is very NOT-immersive.

Your situation will only improve when you finally realize that you DO have a choice. We've had that discussion many times already, so I'm not going to get drawn into it again.

/me pats Yumi sympathetically and exits the thread.

It is the constant exiting that tells me that's the way I must be; and what can I do about it? Nail your shoes to the floor?

If you *think* about immersion, you're not immersed.

I'm role-playing in SL. My avatar is a character, and I pretty much try to keep everything I say and do in character.

I'm also double role-playing in SL. The person running the avatar is a character, and on the rare occasions that I say anything about RL, I try to keep my comments in character.

I have several SL accounts.

Not wussy at all. I'd say courageous. And adaptive.