Assignment 9: Christina Caiozzo

The virtual world of Second Life offers rare opportunities for collaboration, but even with all of its technologies, certain drawbacks remain.

Second Life allows users to choose their names and avatars. This may be a benefit for some, who can express what they value in an obvious way through their avatar and name selection. For example, Professor McLeod shared with us her decision to choose the name of an African Goddess for one of her avatars. This is an interesting way to get to know those you are communicating with, in an effort to minimize the gap created without face to face interaction. A drawback to this process is that others can tell how long you have been on Second Life, and thus how proficient you are based on the appearance of your avatar. Professor McLeod talked about the role status plays in collaboration. It is important to have aesthetically advanced avatars so that you may enlist the help of others in a project or activity.

Professor McLeod spoke briefly about back channeling, the idea that people end up changing their real lives as a result of what they are learning about themselves in Second Life. This can be a very positive phenomenon, if you consider the example of overcoming shyness. People may use Second Life as a sort of “practice” for real world interactions. It may be much less stressful to communicate via avatars in a virtual world, but when that is accomplished people can take that confidence and apply it to real world interactions.

It is very easy to get out of awkward situations in Second Life, because there are many varieties of breaks people can use. With this in mind, it may not be so efficient to try and accomplish anything that is less than desirable (business meetings, school projects, assignments etc.) Users can claim there is lag (even when there isn’t), and they are not receiving messages promptly, or they can say they stepped away from the computer (when they haven’t). Boellstorf (2008) discusses lag being a major problem for users, giving the following example: While playing a trivia game, one avatar knew the answer in real life, but was beat out of answering the question because of lag. In that case there was actual lag, but there is no way to prove what is going on with someone else’s computer, so blaming lag when it isn’t there is a possibility. Since it is easy to escape situations you don’t want to be in, it is important to keep that in mind when planning activities on Second Life.