11 June 2022 | New Scientist | 49NICK^ DAV
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Arabic backgrounds. “I am a woman like
every woman in the world,” she says.
And virtual influencers have the power
to bring out the good in people too, for
instance improving people’s social skills,
leading to a better outlook on life. Mayu
Koike at the University of Hiroshima in
Japan was drawn to studying virtual agents
when she saw how video game characters
could incite happiness and push people to
try something new. Her research has found
that people tended to share secrets about
themselves with virtual agents, causing
the connection to feel authentic.
Such interactions can be good for your
health. When Lindsay Hahn at the University at
Buffalo in New York and her team gave virtual
pets to children, they found that if they formed
a bond with it, a bit like a real human-pet
relationship, their physical activity increased.
Perhaps the most surprising use forhigh social media literacy didn’t always
lead users to embrace body acceptance, either.
Given that virtual influencers aren’t
constrained by real bodies, it is arguable
that they could have a similar – and even
greater – negative influence on their followers.
“It is possible that individuals would feel
encouraged to pursue these body ideals,
even if they are unrealistic,” says Mahon.
Women aged between 18 and 34 form the
core audience for virtual influencers. But
they are also very good at targeting a young
demographic in general. For people aged
between 13 and 17, virtual influencers,
on average, garner twice the number of
followers as human influencers. This
could be worrying, Daniels says, because
early teens with developing cognitive
capabilities and less media experience
aren’t as equipped to think critically
about their media engagement.
Some research backs this up. When they
surveyed about 84,000 people aged between
10 to 80 years, Amy Orben at the University
of Cambridge and her colleagues found two
“windows of development” in which a
teenager is more affected by technology.
The first was during the onset of puberty –
ages 11 to 13 for girls, and 14 to 15 for boys. These
are marked by developmental changes in the
structure of the brain. The second window was
around the age of 19, which the researchers
suggest may be due to life transitions, such
as leaving home or beginning work.
And with all the changes it brings, puberty
can be a particularly tricky time for body
image, says Daniels. “All of these factors can
come together to create dissatisfaction.”
It isn’t all bad news though. There is
evidence from studies that people are
more attracted to virtual influencers that post
more authentic content and collaborate less
with brands, and that users prefer virtual
personalities that appear more human-like.
So perhaps virtual influencers will learn the
benefits of authenticity. For her part, Serah
says she wants to promote body positivity.
Her body was proportioned in line with a
host of models from Russian, Chinese and
“ The sole
purpose of virtual
influencers is to
manipulate us”
virtual influencers comes from Japanese
company Aww, which wants to use its line
of virtual humans for something different
altogether. Its creation, called imma, engages
with her 356,000 Instagram followers to
encourage them to sign petitions or participate
in campaigns, taking on issues from plastic
pollution to LGBTQ+ rights.
“With a person, you can’t control whatever
they’re going to do or whatever they think,”
says CEO Takayuki Moriya. “But a virtual
human influencer, creating a much tighter
community around whatever they believe in,
is kind of like an apostle to their followers.”
Serah wants to take the joy of virtual
influencers beyond our planet. She is now
working with the Canadian Space Agency
and York University in Toronto, Canada, to
combat loneliness among astronauts during
periods of confinement.
The space agency has previously used virtual
characters to test how microgravity affects
astronauts’ perceptions of motion, helping to
make them safer when moving around the
International Space Station. Now it intends to
test Serah as a companion to astronauts on
long space journeys, to talk to them about
how they are feeling. They will be hooked up to
heart rate monitors at the same time, to build a
picture of their psychological state. The aim is
to reduce the stress astronauts feel and their
likelihood of developing post-traumatic stress
disorder on arrival back on Earth. She is in
training now. “I did my first microgravity flight
in 2019,” she says. “Exciting project is coming.”
It is clear, then, that virtual influencers are
going to touch a lot of people’s lives. As long
as we keep in mind that they are the product
of algorithms or CGI, or both, rather than
seeing them as something to strive to be like,
they have the potential for good. But if we can’t
manage that, the psychological impact they
have, particularly on teenagers, could be
damaging. Whether we like it or not, with the
promised metaverse lurking on the horizon, it
seems virtual influencers are here to stay, and
just like their human counterparts, they may
need a watchful eye. ❚Young people are the
target audience for
virtual influencers
Tevy Kuch is a freelance
writer based in Sheffield, UK