I have personally known about Second Life since I have come to Cornell. Being an Information Science major, it has come up relatively often when talking about online environments. Personally, I could never get into it. Second Life creates a space where people can create a second life for themselves in a virtual environment. Because Second Life is a virtual environment it allows users to do things that wouldn't be possible in the real world.
Second Life has a lot of positive and negative aspects when it comes to social computing. Because Second Life is a virtual space, it's very setbacks also serve as high points. It's the lack of cues that makes Second Life as effective as it is. Second Life allows people to be whatever they want to be. By giving people control over who they are in their virtual space, they can become more social in communication style and personality. It allows a person's ideal self to come into existence.
Some drawbacks to the Second Life system is the lack of cues that makes it so successful in the first place. Although Second Life does capture more cues than most social computing mediums, it still falls short in comparison to face to face communication. On top of that, Second Life gives users the ability to be as similar or different from their look and personality as possible it makes it difficult for users to make assumptions about other users that can be verified in the real world. One other drawback to Second Life is the fact that there is one universal time for the whole system even though there are people all over the world using the system. It doesn't really alleviate any time sharing issues that technology has when communicating with people in different time zones so communication with people across the world in real time is still very difficult.
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It is interesting how people take advantage of the freedom that second life allows. Apparently there are all different kinds of avatars- from dragons to dogs. The user is definitely making a statement when they choose their avatar, which is apparent to all who interact with that user.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the universal time seemed bizarre as well. It is odd that the sun rises and sets 4 times in the course of one day, but the time always remains P.S.T. It seems good that there is one set time, so as to avoid confusion if you are going to set up a meeting. It is a bit confusing and I'm not sure what the benefits are aside from that.
The lack of cues offered by Second Life certainly has something to do with its success, but I don’t think it’s the main reason why it is so successful. Most online technologies or social systems are lacking in social cues. People may prefer the added sense of anonymity and ambiguity, particularly if they are shy, but this isn’t unique to Second Life. I would say that the avatar and the virtual space are the main reasons why it is so successful because, like you said, it gives people more control over their online identity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the assumption that second life creates people who may act and be different from how they usually are face to face. Having multiple personalities can make it harder for groups to communicate how they really feel about someone. It doesn't establish avoid environment for trust.
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