Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the social impact of avatars as virtual identities in real life. It focuses especially on avatar dating websites as newly developed and trendy way for real people to find friendship or a relationship.

Paper long abstract:

Unlike systems for flirting or dating within virtual games, avatar-dating systems are designed to enable real people to set up real-life dates. An avatar-mediated discourse enables the players to remain anonymous and invisible. The appearance of dating websites that support the interaction of customers masked by avatars seem to be a result of the popularity of online games, but also reflects the growing number of single computer users who prefer to hide their real identities behind 3D avatars and avoid discomfort on their first real date (women in particular). At this early stage, the world of dating via avatars often presents itself in a limited way and in poor graphical quality. But the trend towards the use of avatars seems to be inevitable and has attracted many protagonists of virtual technologies. In support of this trend, avatar-dating technology within matchmaking websites is likely to become more sophisticated with new, future generations of hardware and software. The author's opinion takes into consideration Walter Ong's established conception of 'second orality' as well as recent criticism of the Internet by Nicholas Carr. The above polarized opinions do not change the fact of growing popularity of new forms of online dating.