Thursday, March 1, 2012

Second Life

I’m really interested in the different psychological reasons as to why people join second life and other virtual worlds. Identity, of course, is one issue that easily comes to mind… I can’t help but wonder what do people's avatars represent and are the users trying to fulfill some need and desire that they are not meeting within their reality? What are your thoughts?
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5 comments:

  1. Brigitte WarnerMarch 3, 2012 at 4:37 PM

    As pro-technology as I come across, the thought of creating a Second LIfe account terrifies me. I think it's great that so many virtual education and nonprofit locations can be built to allow for global networking, and it's tempting to visit these worlds, but MMORPG-addictions by too many loved ones has made me wary of creating a profile when I haven't even gotten the real world figured out yet.

    I've touched upon the attractiveness of this type of escapism before - the kind that seems to suck you in with the inexorable, metaphysical gravitational pull of narcissism: how perfect to watch a perfected you traipse about clocked in a sterile simulation of life.

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  2. JMBMarch 4, 2012 at 8:00 AM

    Who wouldn't want to navigate in their own personal dream world and meet other crazy people that want to do the same? Second Life seems to be a perfected version of the SIMs Online. I would love to make an avatar and go to Japan and see the world!!! I think Second Life works in our modern society where we do not always have the means to go and see all the places we want. However, there is that addictive quality to it that makes it dangerous and makes us question whether the virtual world is better than real life itself. I think if it was resticted to the avatars meeting and collaborating together as they show in the intro, I think Second Life might have some real potential for classroom application. However, I know that is not how it will be used. Such was the original intention of buying my ipad and now I have more games on it than productive apps!

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  3. UnknownMarch 5, 2012 at 9:26 AM

    Here is a Wiki that I ran across that has a bunch of ideas of classroom uses of Second Life (http://www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/TELcomm.pdf).

    Sorry couldn't figure how to make it a link.

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  4. UnknownMarch 5, 2012 at 9:27 AM

    Whoa, and then I come across this..

    SLOODLE is a free and open source project which integrates the multi-user virtual environments of Second Life® and/or OpenSim with the Moodle® learning-management system.

    http://www.sloodle.org/moodle/

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  5. DavidMarch 8, 2012 at 3:17 PM

    You should read Sherry Turkel's book Life on the Screen. It was written long before Second Life, but 95% applies directly to Second Life.

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