Confirming the suspicion of those who, like myself, believe that social behaviors are similarly codified across social universes, a Stanford study found that online nonverbal communication patterns closely reflect offline communication strategies.
Study: Virtual men are standoffish too – Yahoo! News
NEW YORK – Males stand further away when talking to other males in the virtual world of Second Life and are less likely to keep eye contact, according to a study that shows at least one aspect of human behavior carries over into the virtual realm.The study led by doctoral student Nick Yee at Stanford University found that male “avatars,” or three-dimensional representations of Second Life players, stood on average 7.7 feet away from each other, compared to 6.9 feet for mixed-gender pairs — measured, of course, in the virtual scale of Second Life.