Intimate Experiences in Virtual Worlds: The Interplay among Hyperpersonal Communication, Avatar-Based Systems, and Experiential Drives

This paper investigates the intersection of traditional social science understandings of intimacy, established Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) theories developed in the days of text-based Internet communications, and studies of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-mediated intimacy. Using mixed methods, this paper offers an empirical analysis of how users (re)define, interpret, experience, and evaluate “intimacy” in a hyperpersonal sociotechnical system—Second Life (SL). Findings show that SL intimacy closely related to emotional fulfillment, the need to be touched, and interpersonal communication, but that SL intimacy also emphasized new forms of physical proximity. Especially, a subjectively meaningful intimate experience usually emerged in the interplay among selfselection, experiential drives, and technological affordance. This paper contributes to the study of social impacts of ICTs by shedding light on potential changes in how people define and experience interpersonal relationships in hyperpersonal sociotechnical environments.