Understanding Children's Avatar Making in Social Online Games
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Social online games like Minecraft and Roblox have become increasingly integral to children's daily lives. Our study explores how children aged 8 to 13 create and customize avatars in these virtual environments. Through semi-structured interviews and gameplay observations with 48 participants, we investigate the motivations behind children's avatar-making. Our findings show that children's avatar creation is motivated by self-representation, experimenting with alter ego identities, fulfilling social needs, and improving in-game performance. In addition, designed monetization strategies play a role in shaping children's avatars. We identify the ''wardrobe effect,'' where children create multiple avatars but typically use only one favorite consistently. We discuss the impact of cultural consumerism and how social games can support children's identity exploration while balancing self-expression and social conformity. This work contributes to understanding how avatar shapes children's identity growth in social online games.
Authors: Yue Fu, Samuel Schwamm, Amanda Baughan, Nicole M Powell, Zoe Kronberg, Alicia Owens, Emily Renee Izenman, Dania Alsabeh, Elizabeth Hunt, Michael Rich, David Bickham, Jenny Radesky, Alexis Hiniker
Language: English
Topic: Digital Games and Media
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4409745915