After listening to a discussion in class last week about Second Life, I decided to try it out. Now, I am an avid facebook/ internet guru, but Second Life to me sounded very bizarre and much too time consuming. The thought of creating an avatar and actually putting myself into the very real virtual world, I started thinking about what my friends would think if i went ahead and joined the second life team. Once I got over the fact of what they would think, I decided to try it out.
When I got home from work, I couldn't procrastinate enough so I went ahead to check out what this second life is after all. From hearing Annie talking about it in class, I really was intrigued that people would rather live their avatar lives than that of their own. After a grueling installation process, I finally had downloaded the program. Once I entered the second life world, I was in a completely different place. Not only was I confused on what to do, I didn't know how to make an avatar. After reading the fine print, I figured out how to create who I wanted to be. I'm not going to lie, creating a new person was too much fun. I got to customize my character down to the size of the nose to the width of her hips. The only trouble I had was clothing her, so my character went out into the world of second life, semi naked on my behalf.
Once I finished customizing my avatar Zoey, I took a stroll in second life world. I could walk in all directions, run into other avatars and even fly. Flying was pretty cool, although I didn't understand the purpose. I used my chat box to get help from other avatars to tell me what exactly I was supposed to do. I didn't understand the purpose of this so called second life. After initiating a conversation with a male avatar, I told him that I was new here and looking for something to do. After he repeated second life jargon to me, I decided to move on to a different friend. Once I went around the town I was in, I got bored. Still didn't figure out the point or what exactly I was doing here. So I said my good byes and left second life.
Not only did this program slow down my computer and take up a ridiculous amount of space, It made me someone who I was not. Well, in fact I made me someone I was not. It was amazing to see how much time I spent on customizing my character to be someone I wasn't in real life. When conversing with other second life avatars, it was hard to tell if there was any truth to our conversations. I know I made everything up that I said, because I didn't want to give out personal information, and for that matter have someone find out that I was actually on second life.
Programs like second life, and other virtual reality online programs makes interpersonal relations almost exstint. With everything handed to us on the internet, We don't even have to leave our beds to meet someone new. Now, we can find friends, lovers , even animals online at the convience of a click of a mouse. It is ruining our abilities to interact face to face. It is one thing to chat online, you don't have to look them in the eye, you can think for a long time what you are going to say, and you can even get embarrassed without showing the pink flush in your cheeks. I think meeting people online is a fine thing to do, especially for those who are more shy, awkward or even have disabilities that prevent them from being about to socially interact. But, what are we learning from this? There is a huge difference between chatting online and chatting face to face. There are emotions, mannuerisms, and gestures that you get from interacting face to face. When you're online, you lose that ability to use your emotions as words. Things get misconstrued often online, and problems arise.
After I left second life, I decided to uninstall the program, because honestly I would never go on it again. It was a good experience, and I'm glad I saw what all the hype was about, but it definitely was not for me. I can totally see why people join it though, everyone one the site was very friendly and welcoming. There was no judging like there is in the real world, at least I didn't see any. Users lose themselves in this virtual reality until it becomes hard for them to distinguish between the two. The internet is a very powerful and influencial system, and through it many opportunites arise. I just don't want to see the internet take over our society and until we actually become robots and reliant on technology.
