Our Virtual and Real Worlds: How Are They Interacting?

In his review of Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human, Richard Velayo notes, "A reader will likely come away asking questions about how our lives are being transformed in very real ways by what is happening in the virtual world," and "There are a number of research methodologies that may be used from within virtual worlds, including formal experimentation, observational ethnography, and quantitative analysis of social networks."

Can social scientists use virtual worlds to study "real world" human behavior? Is this an innovative and valid way to study more sensitive or controversial social behaviors that we would have difficulty studying in the real world? And, would it be useful to examine the effects of what happens to our avatars in the virtual world on our actual real world behavior?

Read the Review

Studying Virtual Worlds: What's in It for Psychology?
By Richard Velayo
      PsycCRITIQUES, 2009 Vol 53(51)