Second Life and virtual worlds

For an inside look on virtual worlds, we were asked to create a Second Life account online. Second Life is a place where people create human like figures called Avatars and use them to explore a computerised world where you can interact with other people from all over the world. It was created in 2003 by Linden Labs, and Jonathan Richards from The Times said that it “has become synonymous with what many believe will bring about the next wave of technology innovation: ‘the 3D internet’”. There have been many attempts at online virtual worlds, such as Coke Music (2002), Habbo Hotel (2000), and Virtual Magic Kingdom (2005), but ones such as Second Life and the popular World of Warcraft have set the standards much higher for graphics and online activities.

Many people flock to virtual worlds to get away from their everyday lives, like a holiday for the mind, but some tend to go too far. They can go so far that it would appear that a virtual world is their everyday setting, and reality is the holiday. While this seems like I am taking the extreme angle on this one, I have seen what a virtual world can do to a person’s social life if the user buries them self too deeply into it. Because anybody from around the world can access them, virtual worlds are full of new people- people who do not know a thing about you. The allure of creating a new identity attracts quite a few, especially those that are unhappy with their current identity in reality. My brother is quite addicted to World of Warcraft, and it has gotten so bad that he barely leaves the house anymore and often doesn’t acknowledge that a person has spoken to him because he’s too absorbed in the game. But, because he has so many friends just like him online, he doesn’t seem to feel the need to return to the real world, and believes that his loved ones just nag at him for no reason. So it seems that, quite ironically, the virtual worlds created to get a person more in touch with society and to venture out globally has in fact done the opposite and encouraged people to sit at home alone in a room, with no actual social contact.

I tried to understand what the fuss was about, so I created a Second Life account for class, and gave the account a test run. While at first it seemed fun tweaking the Avatars appearance, over an hour n a half later I grew frustrated. Why did there need to be so many options to change the angle of this Avatars eyebrow or nose etc? I set myself the challenge to attempt to make my Avatar appear as much like myself as possible, but I cannot deny that the desire to change a few things crossed my mind more than once. Out of all the people I asked, none had decided to make theirs like themselves, simply because no one is completely happy with the way they look, and we would all like a little control over how we appear to others. I could now relate to my brothers desire to create a new person, but I was still at a loss to what I should do in this new world. My class mates and I explored the Second Life world, but found very few people willing to have a normal conversation- one even asked my friend for online sex. This reminded me of the risks of creating a virtual world so open to the public- anyone could pretend to be any age or gender, and could easily lure in younger and more naive people, maybe even children. My cousin is only 9, and he goes on World of Warcraft often. Any member of the public could approach him and take advantage, maybe even try and meet up with him in real life. This is a worrying issue, and while these worlds may appear great fun and open up social gateways, we cannot forget that sexual predators are out there, and will take advantage of any device which allows them easier access to their prey.