Second Life is a place where anyone can do or be anything they want to. Although SL provides all of its users with the ability to do or create anything they want, within SL rules, the virtual world does not have the capability to be a common technology for communicating at the moment but it has the potential to.
Today, almost every teenager has a Facebook, there are more than 300 million users. Because of Facebook's prominence in society and culture it is has become a main form of communication for many people. Since Second Life does not have as many users and is not widely used in today's society or culture it has not reached its highest capability for communication.
Although there are groups and business in Second Life they are usually confined to the virtual world. And during my time in SL I have found that many of the residents do not communicate with their friends in Second Life outside of the world. I believe this because I do not communicate with any of my SL friends outside of the world and I do not want to be contacted by them outside of SL. Also, Second Life could be used as a tool to "escape" from ones real life so would they want people from SL contacting them in the outside world?
Thus from my personal experiences and knowledge about Second Life and other forms of online communication I believe that SL is not a common form of communication. However, I believe that in time SL might evolve into a technology that many people in society use for communication purposes.
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I've come to realize that SL is so much better when you go somewhere with a friend ( one you know in real life ). We should try it, me, meg, and caroline had alot of fun. These are the only SL friends that I would contact. I wouldn't want to contact any random people I met because to me that's crossing the boundaries, it's something people shouldn't do since it's dangerous.
ReplyDeleteI agree that SL isn't as popular as facebook, and it won't ever compare. I think people rather communicate with people they can actually see and personally, it's a better way to meet people.
So are you saying that more people just need to hear about Second Life? It is hard to compare anything to the Facebook giant, but then again it is hard to compare anything to Facebook. I think that there is a bit more contact with some type of personality, be it artificial or real, in Second Life than in Facebook. In Facebook, we just look at people's pages. In Second Life, we see how the avatar moves and communicates, which may be an extension of the actual person's Real Life.
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