Is a Second Life all it's cracked up to be?

As part of the digital media course, we have been persuaded to join the social networking site, Second Life. And I did mean to say persuaded. Normally it would be a simple task for Uni students to be 'playing' on a social networking site rather than discussing that weeks reading, but somehow trying to look at Second Life with an open mind is a bit tricky. It's the same if I was told I would have to join World of Warcraft...For me, it's just not very...cool.

However, we must look at things with a, very, open mind.

But starting up your Second Life isn't as easy as a person may think, after all, you are creating a whole new life.

Step One: Choose a basic advatar to start your new life with, either as close or as different to your own personal self.
Step Two: Choose a first name. [I went with Scarlette, a bit more exotic than Kate...Also slightly American] Step Three: Choose one of the pre selected last names Second Life has created for you [I finally, after much deliberation, settled on Mikado...Yes like the chocolate]
Step Four: Start your Second Life. Now this is easier said than done, for starters, I had no clue what I was doing, just wandering, and flying, a very fun but constantly glitchy way to get around. Then I found;
Step Five: Personalise your advatar This is where it can get interesting. Now I made my advatar blonde, with blue eyes, and pale skin....Which I then made to look like I had spent a few months in Greece getting a nice tan. So far, so close to the real life representation. However when I say you can personalise your advatar, I mean you can alter every little thing about your advatar, changing the shape of your eyes, the wideness of your behind, even the amount of your love handles... Let's just say that when you are able to create an image of you that you would truly like, i ended up shaving off a few pounds, made my upper assests a little larger, made my hair a lot longer and blonder.... So maybe even the most cynical will follow the crowd in making an image of the ideal self.

So I then ventured deeper into the world of Second Life. Except for I couldn't really work out how to move from place to place, or indeed what place to go too. So I typed in something random into the search bar and found myself transported to a nice log cabin with plenty of other Second Lifers.

And then came the perverts. Ok ok, maybe that is being very cynical. That didn't happen for a least a couple of trips into the virtual world. However when I did have some rather disturbing invitations from 40 year old men who, scarily, work at a University and was having a 'sickie', meaning so he could stay home and play on SL (as it's known in the world), I turned the subject around to ask why he was on it. He didn't seem to understand and pushed on with his advances, so I turned to a guy who, in SL was tall, tanned, muscular, and with a full head of chocolate brown hair, as far as computerised advatars go, he wasn't too bad. Until I asked for his RL (real life to any Second Life 'noobs' out there) age....63. Curiousity got the better of me, I asked him why he didn't make himself look like 63 rather than 23. I offended him, and he snappily told me that it was because in SL he could be anything he wanted to be, no matter how misleading. However he then felt bad and gave himself a pot belly, winkles, and quite spindley legs and arms. I wonder how long that lasted.

But it's interesting. I got rid of my insecurities in SL, however I think I could still have passed off for a 18/19 year old girl, rather than shaved 40 years off my life. But it's true. You can be anything you want to be.

I took some further research into SL and found some newpaper articles in it. Here are the links if you want to check any out in further detail.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article5151126.ece

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4523668.ece

David Pollard and Amy Taylor, A true love romance. Met in Second Life. Married in real life. Also married in Second Life.
(To the right is a picture of Mr and Mrs Pollard's advatars.And their RL counterparts.)

True love. Until however Mrs Pollard took a break from her computer and, I quote "she caught a glimpse of her husband's avatar in a compromising position on a sofa with a female avatar." And it wasn't just any advatar...It was an advatar playing the role of a prostitute. Mrs Pollard hired a private investigator to get evidence of her husband's infidelity. A private investigator IN SECOND LIFE.



As if there isn't enough fidelity problems in the world. It now continues into virtual worlds. Am I the only one who finds this a bit much? And that the private investigator has the worst name ever? Markie Macdonald?!

The second link is about Universities using Second Life to teach students.
"Students can go to lectures, tutorials and seminars anywhere, from the garden to the beach, without leaving their rooms. Enthusiasts say this will revolutionise distance learning and help students with disabilities who may not be able to go to all lectures." Thousands of pounds has been spent to create these campuses.

Professor Philip Gibbard was the first Cambridge University professor to give a lecture in Second Life. He says the experience was a bit awkward: “I thought it was a very good idea in principle, but the downside is that you don't have any sense of an audience because it's virtual.”

THE ONLY DOWNSIDE? Does anyone not know students? "Hey, so your lecture tomorrow is in Second Life, you don't have to physically come into class, you just sit at your computer and learn ok?" If any students actually made it out of BED to even sit down at the computer I cant help but think their thoughts might stray to Facebook, to their email, even leave the lecture and wander around Second Life. I may be the only one to think it, but I pay thousands to be taught at University, don't fob me off with a pixel created advatar of my lecturer! They could be 55, with a beer belly and bald, and their advatar could be highly misleading!

I refuse to allow Second Life to become my only life, so I guess I shall have to stay in the 'noob' category for a lot longer.