I have spent a significant length of time giddy at the prospect of entering Second Life. My silly side (quite a wide stripe) was really looking forward to it. I'm afraid my usual technical difficulties, however, have thwarted my entrance. I have repeated downloads and followed a variety of instructions, but it looks like a combination of Vista security, Norton firewall, my own perpetual ineptitude, and depletion of rationed time have conspired to keep me out of Second Life Town for the time-being. The last time I crashed I was about to behold my avatar for the second time (the first two or three tries, which involved one reload, didn't even take me that far). However, thanks to Araba Dawson-Andoh, I was able to get a taste of the SL experience, albeit without the hands-on (fingertips?) advantage, with "A Campus Tour in Second Life." http://chronicle.com/media/video/v53/i37/secondlife/ Prior to viewing Jeffrey Young's Case-Western Reserve tour, I'd only imagined Second Life in the most basic terms--buzzwords: adolescent fun! But the video is enlightening. The Second Life program has genuine practical potential.
Disturbing, however, was the peek at another classmate's Second Life links which include the nuking of a SL site in Australia. A tactic like that, brutishly demolishing the creations of others, is not fun. It's beyond even subversive. It's perverse.
I look forward to having time to partake of some Second Life on my own, but my present conclusion is that this program has remarkable potential for more than entertainment. For now, though, the program seems to be used mostly for its perfect blend of IM, reality show, MTV, and manga. It's mostly deployed as a toy and a dating game. The more we consider the possibilities and the tendencies, it may be that we decide the nukers in Australia are basically related to the awful school lurkers and destroyers. Yes, they haven't physically hurt anyone, but they are malicious and destructive. They, like the Columbine and Virginia Tech snipers have lashed out at blatantly popular systems. The correlation means something, and though we can't know what exactly, we have clues. All this hepped up cyber-flirting stimulates testosterone. It encourages a kind of jerking off that Vaidhyanathan may romantically perceive as akin to that of Diogenes in the marketplace, except it isn't. Diogenes' marketplace is analog. Cyber-induced hormones leave you stuck in the confines of your workstation. It's only natural to want to come out of the closet, and if you're feeling like an outsider to begin with, all this simultaneously revved up and repressed sexual energy is likely to get you into trouble, and at the extreme, can make you lethal.
The author of another article recently read seems to lament the cultural divide between librarians who come to the technology as a second language and the kids who've grown up versed in the technology. The implication is that that those ol' librarians will be at a severe loss. Once again, I'm not so sure we know what we're talking about. We're in paradigm crisis, Kuhn-style. All hell and heaven are breaking lose. It's exciting. Some super cool geeks, like the Case Western crew, are making mind-bending headway. A lot of other kids are having good randy fun. But there's something else, and it's disturbing, in the Second Life mix.
There is much to explore here--primarily our assumptions. For one thing, why are we so quick to get on the wagon that presumes ALL kids are techno wizards? Some have an innate sense of caution about technology. I know quite a few kids who, sure, they've got the cellphone and the laptop, and they text and use IM, but they're not junkies. Sex and fun are good, but there's more to Second Life than meets the high.
Disturbing, however, was the peek at another classmate's Second Life links which include the nuking of a SL site in Australia. A tactic like that, brutishly demolishing the creations of others, is not fun. It's beyond even subversive. It's perverse.
I look forward to having time to partake of some Second Life on my own, but my present conclusion is that this program has remarkable potential for more than entertainment. For now, though, the program seems to be used mostly for its perfect blend of IM, reality show, MTV, and manga. It's mostly deployed as a toy and a dating game. The more we consider the possibilities and the tendencies, it may be that we decide the nukers in Australia are basically related to the awful school lurkers and destroyers. Yes, they haven't physically hurt anyone, but they are malicious and destructive. They, like the Columbine and Virginia Tech snipers have lashed out at blatantly popular systems. The correlation means something, and though we can't know what exactly, we have clues. All this hepped up cyber-flirting stimulates testosterone. It encourages a kind of jerking off that Vaidhyanathan may romantically perceive as akin to that of Diogenes in the marketplace, except it isn't. Diogenes' marketplace is analog. Cyber-induced hormones leave you stuck in the confines of your workstation. It's only natural to want to come out of the closet, and if you're feeling like an outsider to begin with, all this simultaneously revved up and repressed sexual energy is likely to get you into trouble, and at the extreme, can make you lethal.
The author of another article recently read seems to lament the cultural divide between librarians who come to the technology as a second language and the kids who've grown up versed in the technology. The implication is that that those ol' librarians will be at a severe loss. Once again, I'm not so sure we know what we're talking about. We're in paradigm crisis, Kuhn-style. All hell and heaven are breaking lose. It's exciting. Some super cool geeks, like the Case Western crew, are making mind-bending headway. A lot of other kids are having good randy fun. But there's something else, and it's disturbing, in the Second Life mix.
There is much to explore here--primarily our assumptions. For one thing, why are we so quick to get on the wagon that presumes ALL kids are techno wizards? Some have an innate sense of caution about technology. I know quite a few kids who, sure, they've got the cellphone and the laptop, and they text and use IM, but they're not junkies. Sex and fun are good, but there's more to Second Life than meets the high.
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