Maybe Your Avatar Controls You

Jesse Fox, a PhD student at Stanford, is exploring how the online interactions you have through an avatar shape your real life identity. Video after the jump.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuOphOwjIDMSome of Fox's work has shown that watching an avatar that looks like you exercise can make you more motivated to do it yourself. But if people escape to virtual worlds to act out bad impulses, that may actually strengthen those harmful aspects of their characters. A little disturbing, no?