I found the Second Life worlds kind of creepy. I understand that they may be great tools, however, the avatars totally remove any social interaction that may have occurred. It is bad enough that we are already communication via text message and email, now avatars?! That really takes any personal touch out of the social process online. The avatars don’t have to be themselves, they can choose to be anything they like. I am not sure about this as a serious academic tool. It may be fun as a game though.
Advertisement
October 29, 2009 at 3:22 am |
Michelle:
My sense of what many of the 2nd Lifers enjoy most about it is the opportunities for social interaction across boundaries (e.g., distance, culture). That is, its the social interaction that they most enjoy. So, its paradoxical that a recurrent critique of 2nd Life is its retreat from social interaction.
Years ago (80s -90s) I was employed in the telecommunications business. We marveled about the opportunities for communication in new and interesting ways. I never thought inventing an alternative (ideal?) identity and socializing with other pseudo-people would be a direction that ‘communications’ would go.
Still, if you think of it as a learning tool, it has immense possibilities…
Stuart