Second Life
A few years a go I remember a friend telling me about second life. It didn’t interest me then, but when it didn’t go away immediately, I stated to wonder if it was something that might be interesting. So when module 6 was about immersion and virtual worlds i decided to make an account and try Second Life.
Well i have to report that I found it neither interesting nor useful. I fully admit that maybe I didn’t give it enough time, but (45 minutes was enough for me). Research has shown that Second Life can be useful in the academic library context, but that it has a steep learning curve (Condic, 2009). Perhaps I was not on Second Life to get myself over the peak of the learning curve. But I found the program to be disorienting, difficult to use and just boring. I could not find anyone to interact with. After 45 minutes I still hadn’t figured out how to chat.
I really do believe it is a question of purpose of motivation. That is to say, it was not interesting to explore. If there was a purposeful meeting then i might have had more motivation to learn than aimlessly wandering, as i did for this assignment. What reason does second life provide to motivate users to participate? There is no purpose or object like in a game.
For example, I use to play World of Warcraft, an extremely popular MMORPG game, which is basically an immersive world. In contrast to second life it was easy to use, and there were always new objectives (quests) to complete and I was always motivated. in fact i was probably too motivated. It was very addictive.
So maybe if there was a specific purpose Second Life might be more interesting. For example, If there was a virtual meeting. However, i found it so confusing and difficult to use, that I cannot believe there is not a better way to have that meeting. Skype, or any other video conference software would be far easier to use, and in my own opinion more effective. So I see no real use that second life offers. Everything that can be don there can probably be done better, or at least as good, with another easier to use technology.
I definitely sympathize with you…. I too had a difficult time learning what to do. You raise an interesting point about there being no object in Second Life no motivation. But what could be the motivation in a learning environment? What could make it a game?
Dana, I am not a fan of Second Life, either, or any of the virtual worlds I have been exposed to, for the very reason you mentioned – I had no purpose or motivation to invest the time and energy required to create a real presence there. When I was in the online MLIS program at San Jose State University, I had a course where we could either take an online written test or create a Second Life avatar to fulfill a class assignment. I chose the test. I just couldn’t see anything in Second Life that I couldn’t do just as well, just as easily (or even more so) in the real world. These virtual worlds could be useful, perhaps in a distance education context, but for me, there would have to be a very tangible, real-life advantage to spending time in a virtual world. I really prefer to live IRL.