I read an article in Times last year where the reporter took a virtual tour of Second Life. After reading it, I went and checked out what the fuss was all about. Aside from being taken back by how rampant the virtual sex part is within Second Life, the rest of Second Life is absolutely astounding.
A virtual social network equipped with a fully functional capitalist system that is connected to the real world. Virtual concerts, speeches, movie screenings and debates. Real estates to user created applications, and of course just a place to network.
While all these amazed me, and was intellectually stimulating, I made the mistake of thinking Second Life was a game. It wasn't, and if you think it is, you'll be absolutely bored to tears if that's how you're approaching it. I haven't been on since the day I downloaded it.
However since finding out Second Life is on my Social Network curriculum, I have since made a new account, and explored Second Life in a new light this time. "How can I use Second Life as I use Facebook or Myspace?"
I'm not sure yet. All I know is its going to be time consuming and seems to me, it's going to make me more antisocial in real life than social in Second Life.
Monday, October 1, 2007
A Second Universe
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Hey Emporer. I totally agree that Second Life seems to make people more antisocial in real life. That's for many reasons, of course, but most notably the fact that they spend so much quiet time at their computer playing SL, that for them to have to talk to someone in real life seems very awkward. Additionally, if they do use the newly added speech application incorporation into SL, they can talk to other people, but even then they are almost entirely anonymous, aside from the sound of their voice, and they can talk or interact with anyone, without the fear of being physically harmed, no matter what they do. I think that fear of physical interaction keeps many people from interacting with other humans in general. SL definitely doesn't help this.
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