Trust in Shared Virtual Environments: The Example of Activeworlds

This paper examines how relations of trust are established and maintained in shared virtual environments (VE’s). The paper deals mainly with Activeworlds, an online multi-user desktop virtual reality (VR) system that has attracted many hundreds of thousands of users. We argue that the nature of trust depends on the social setting – in this case, a shared VE that is mainly used for entertainment or as a ‘hangout’. Despite the fact that Activeworlds users are mainly interacting with strangers and that relationships tend to be short-lived, there seem to be relatively few problems around trust in this VE. This trustworthiness among participants is discussed in relation to a number of examples. Finally, we consider some of the implications of this finding for the study of trust in other types of shared VE’s and for making comparisons between social interactions in VE’s and in the ‘real’ world.