1. The Approach: Actively ‘driven’ by a human who ‘inhabits’ the avatars Characters and context reflect typical peers and environments Some characters use peer pressure to encourage potentially negative behaviors related to excessive drinking Human in the loop provides natural language interaction, facilitating branching and adaptation of story line while staying true to each character's personality/backstory The Goal: Use avatar-mediated interactive, personalized experiences to help college freshmen develop protective strategies, for self and for others, to help reduce their problem drinking and drunk driving The Hypothesis : Those in treatment group will be more aware of hazards of alcohol and will be better prepared to exercise protective strategies, thereby reducing binge drinking rates Little sister meets friends and is invited to party

2. Party in full swingConsequences & risks

3. All are straight out of high school entering as first-time-in-college students All are required to take an online alcohol prevention course Control group (those in on-line education but not Virtual College Life) and treatment group (those experiencing both) drawn from 2013 freshmen class Each group will consist of 100 freshmen ages 18 and 19 Experience did not address driving while drunk strongly enough Wanted more negative consequences related to drinking choices Concluding message needed to more effectively address protective strategies All of above points will be further explored in focus groups