Second Life,
Artefact 3: Report and Evaluation

To consider the real effect of online community on people who do actually extensivley use it I decided to join the social “world” Second Life.

“Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe.
From the moment you enter The World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.

You'll also be surrounded by the creations of your fellow Residents. Because Residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other Residents.
The Market Place currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world unit-of-trade, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges.”

Day 1:
First thing is first you have to become a member of SL (as it is known in the online world). I am really sceptical about the Internet and all the online communication/social groups so this wasn't an easy pill to swallow, further more I hate online forms to fill in and this site had a lot. After signing up for account I now had to install the program needed for SL, again not something I love doing but I had to soldier on. This took about 2hours in total and once I opened it my computer crashed so I though I would give up for the day and go an join the RL (thats the Real World for SL users).

Day 2:
Second day on Second life. Today was the day I would get to grips with my new world – or so I thought! Firstly, after loading, I had to design my character. That is to say his name and skijn colour, all new starters look the same with the same clothes etc obviously men and women have a different preset but it is quite strange when you get dumped into this little island and everyone is the same! I thought that you would be able to design the image and design of your character but later found that this comes at a price. Seems like most things inside SL aren't virtual at all, money is valued just as much here as in the RL. In my SL inexperience I thought you would just jump straight into the world, however you are first transported to a “tutorial island” this is where you get to grips with the tools of SL. Rather than follow the rules I hung round the portal area where new people appear, I wanted to just get on with my task in hand and bother people into telling me their RL dilemas that have forced them into the strange world of SL.

I meet a guy from Essex who's Real Name is Adam. He told me that he joined because his “girlfriend spent a lot of time on here and want to see what all the fuss is about”. I imediatley thought this was strange, this person was in a relationship in the RL but both him a his girlfriend have transended themselves to a virtual one. I asked him if they would meet up on SL together or were they just exploring solo, he told me that they probably would meet up in SL but I got the impression ( as much as you can though text speech) that he wasn't to keen on the whole online life and perhaps was checking out his girlfriends intentions. This was interesting to me to find that this man valued SL as almost a real world where he could mistrust his girlfriend just like RL. This is itself a strange way to look at how extensively users consider SL as a “real” domain, to what extent do people actually engage in here!? I left Adam only to spin around in circles a lot – it was time to have a go on the tutorials.

Day 3
I am now fully equipped to enter SL after spending about 6 hours completing the basic tutorials. I was moved to a welcome area where I met two tutor guides. I was quite surprised to find that these two guides were quite old in RL. They told me the reason they liked coming on SL was , because they got to meet people from all over the world. I questioned the definition of “meeting” and one told me that being able to chat was good enough for her and that she enjoyed sharing stories with new people. I didn't quite believe this, in fact I'm still so sceptical of the whole thing I'm not sure I will believe anything anyone tells me. This is due to effort all these characters h ave made on there SL person. I believe that these people are perhaps bored and use SL to “play” but also chat at the same time. Most of the conversations I had in this area were people asking how to do certain functions, not the most interesting conversations but I suppose it was the welcome zone.
My immediate thoughts of SL are that is very difficult to get in and start “living”. Yes I have spoke to a few people about it but they all seem to just define it as a way of communicating, surely there must be more to it than just a chat, otherwise why would they not just go to chat sites?

The one thing that I have gathered is that in this area where it is populated by new arrivals, most seemed to be older than 40/45 years old in RL. I'm not surprised by this as I don't think this SL will appeal to younger generations who's social lives are a lot more active.
I decided not to change much of my appearance, partly because I'm interested to see how welcomed I will be in the main island as an obvious newcomer and partly because I didn't want to spend any money. I left for the main island.