{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,10]],"date-time":"2026-06-10T16:41:58Z","timestamp":1781109718571,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":32,"publisher":"IGI Global Scientific Publishing","issue":"1","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2010,1,1]]},"abstract":"<p>Millions of youth have joined virtual worlds to hang out with each other. However, capturing their interactions is no easy feat given the complexity of virtual worlds, their 24\/7 availability, and distributed access from different places. In this paper, we illustrate what different methods can reveal about the dating and flirting practices of tweens in Whyville.net, a virtual world with over 1.5 million registered players in 2005 between the ages 8-16 years old. We compare findings from analyses of tweens\u2019 newspaper writings, chat records, and logfile data. Our analysis demonstrates the mixed attitudes toward flirting on Whyville and the pervasiveness of flirting as a whole, as well as the breadth and selectivity of tweens\u2019 adoption of flirting practices. We discuss how our multi-modal investigation reveals individual variation and development across practices and suggests that player expertise might contribute to the striking contrast between formal writing about dating and the frequency of it on the site. Finally, we discuss the limitations of our methodological approaches and suggest that our findings are limited to a particular space and time in the existence of Whyville and the tweens who populate it.<\/p>","DOI":"10.4018\/jgcms.2010010104","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2010,4,16]],"date-time":"2010-04-16T16:19:41Z","timestamp":1271434781000},"page":"40-48","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Multi-Modal Investigations of Relationship Play in Virtual Worlds"],"prefix":"10.4018","volume":"2","author":[{"given":"Yasmin B.","family":"Kafai","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Pennsylvania, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Deborah","family":"Fields","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of California, Los Angeles, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kristin A.","family":"Searle","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Pennsylvania, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"2432","reference":[{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-0","unstructured":"Boellstorff, T. (2008). Coming of age in Second Life: An anthropologist explores the virtually human. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-1","unstructured":"Boyd, D. (2008). Why youth \u201cheart\u201d social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), Youth, identity, and digital media (pp. 119-142). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1207\/S15327809JLS0903_4"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bruckman, A. (2006). Analysis of log file data to understand behavior and learning in an online community. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J. Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), The International handbook of virtual learning environments (pp. 1449-1465). New York: Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4020-3803-7_58"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-4","unstructured":"Buckingham, D., & Willett, R. (2006). Digital generations: Children, young people, and new media. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-5","unstructured":"Castronova, E. (2005). Synthetic worlds: The business and pleasure of gaming. Chicago: University of Chicago Press."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Clarke, J., & Dede, C. (2007). MUVEs as a powerful means to study situated learning. In C. Chinn, G. Erkins, and S. Puntambekar (Eds.), Proceedings of CSCL 2007: Of mice, minds and society, New Brunswick, NJ (pp. 144-147).","DOI":"10.3115\/1599600.1599627"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-7","unstructured":"Dibbell, J. (1998). My tiny life: Crime and passion in a virtual world. New York: Henry Holt and Company."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/1555412006292613"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s11423-007-9081-2"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fields, D. A., & Kafai, Y. B. (2008). Knowing and throwing mudballs, hearts, pies, and flowers: A connective ethnography of gaming practices. In V. Jonker, A. Lazonder, & C. Hoadley (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands.","DOI":"10.1177\/1555412009351263"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s11412-008-9057-1"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-12","unstructured":"Fields, D. A., & Kafai, Y. B. (in press). Navigating life as an avatar: The shifting identities-in-practice of a girl player in a tween virtual world. In C. C. Ching & B. Foley (Eds.), Constructing identity in a digital world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-13","unstructured":"Fields, D. A., & Kafai, Y. B. (in press). Understanding Player Participation and Practices in Virtual Worlds: A Proposal for Qualitative Analyses of Log File Data. In D. Thomas (Ed.), Research methods in virtual worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.","DOI":"10.1145\/950566.950595"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-15","unstructured":"Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kafai, Y. B. (2008). Gender play in a tween gaming club. In Y. B. Kafai, C. Heeter, J. Denner, & J. Sun (Eds.), Beyond Barbie & Mortal Kombat: New perspectives on gender and gaming (pp. 111-124). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/7477.001.0001"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kafai, Y. B., Feldon, D., Fields, D. A., Giang, M., & Quintero, M. (2007). Life in the times of Whypox: A virtual epidemic as a community event. In C. Steinfield, B. Pentland, M. Ackerman, & N. Contractor (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth Conference of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, New Brunswick, NJ (pp. 196-205).","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-84628-905-7_9"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kafai, Y. B., & Giang, M. (2007). Virtual playgrounds: Children\u2019s multi-user virtual environments for playing and learning with science. In T. Willoughby & E. Wood (Eds.), Children\u2019s Learning in a Digital World (pp. 196-217). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.","DOI":"10.1002\/9780470696682.ch8"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1207\/s1532690xci2403_1"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-20","unstructured":"Ludlow, P., & Wallace, M. (2007). The Second Life Herald: The Virtual Tabloid that Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-21","unstructured":"Mazzarella, S. R. (2005). Girl wide web: Girls, the internet, and the negotiation of identity. New York: Peter Lang."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nardi, B., Ly, S., & Harris, J. (2007). Learning conversations in World of Warcraft. In Proceedings of the 2007 Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (pp. 79). Washington, DC: IEEE Computer Society.","DOI":"10.1109\/HICSS.2007.321"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10956-008-9120-8"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-24","unstructured":"Stevens, R., Satwicz, T., & McCarthy, L. (2008). In-Game, In-Room, In-World: Reconnecting video game play to the rest of kids\u2019 lives. In K. Salen (Ed.), The ecology of games: Connecting youth, games, and learning (pp. 41-66). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-25","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.appdev.2004.09.007"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.appdev.2004.09.002"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Taylor, T. L. (2006). Play between worlds: Exploring online game culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/5418.001.0001"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-28","unstructured":"Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press."},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-29","article-title":"Looking for gender (LFG): Gender roles and behaviors among online gamers.","author":"D.Williams","journal-title":"The Journal of Communication"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1083-6101.2008.00428.x"},{"key":"jgcms.2010010104-31","unstructured":"XKaileeX. (2003). Anti-virtual dating. The Whyville Times. Retrieved November 2, 2008, from Whyville.net."}],"container-title":["International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations"],"original-title":[],"language":"ng","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.igi-global.com\/viewtitle.aspx?TitleId=40938","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2022,6,1]],"date-time":"2022-06-01T19:51:40Z","timestamp":1654113100000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/services.igi-global.com\/resolvedoi\/resolve.aspx?doi=10.4018\/jgcms.2010010104"}},"subtitle":[""],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2010,1,1]]},"references-count":32,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2010,1]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.4018\/jgcms.2010010104","relation":{},"ISSN":["1942-3888","1942-3896"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1942-3888","type":"print"},{"value":"1942-3896","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2010,1,1]]}}}