Research, Research, Research
Years ago, a former colleague in the SunOS man page group dubbed me the "Research Queen."
While I'm not sure that I like the exact title, I'm not at all ashamed by what it conveys. Actually, I'm rather proud of it.
I tend to research topics of interest to death. More than a few people have come to rely on my analysis based on the thorough job that I do. Medical benefits, service providers, air fares, housing, child rearing, schools, voter issues, the list goes on.
Now avatars and virtual realities have been added to the list. Those articles on virtual reality in Stanford Magazine whetted my appetite and opened a whole new real life world. It's an academic and intellectual real life world. I thrive on that stuff. Lucky for me, a lot of it is happening at Stanford, just just a few miles down the road from my real life home.
It's so exciting.
So, now I have a notebook full of avatar and virtual reality research. I've made contact with some of the real life experts in virtual realities, and hope to meet with at least one of them within the next month. I'm poring over articles in scientific and psychological journals in a way that I haven't done since graduate school.
Here are a just a few of the questions that I'm investigating:
- How do online experiences influence offline thinking?
- What are the group dynamics of avatars? How can avatars best work/play together?
- What physical characteristics make an avatar more successful? More approachable? More whatever?
- Do real life social norms, such as personal space exist in virtual worlds?
Let me know if you think of any topics of interest.
As with any new research project, questions and directions change along the way. But, the journey has begun, and, as happens to me at the start of any new journey, I'm energized, inspired, and invigorated.
