11. The computer program product of claim 10 , wherein the area of the virtual universe associated with the environmental chat associated with the avatar comprises the area of the virtual universe displayed on a computer system associated with the avatar.
10. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory machine readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to: determine a chat amount within a time window in an area of a virtual universe associated with an environmental chat associated with an avatar; determine a chat distance associated with the environmental chat based, at least in part, on the chat amount, wherein the chat distance comprises a radius defining a chat area around the avatar within which the avatar receives conversations between avatars in the area of the virtual universe; and modify the chat distance in response to a change in the chat amount in the area of the virtual universe associated with the environmental chat, wherein the modified chat distance is based, at least in part, on the changed chat amount.