Second Life may be a great place to meet new people and form online friendships, but as far as it being an everyday communication technology, like the telephone, I have my doubts. The biggest problem holding Second Life back as a communication technology is the lack of knowledge about the avatars you meet. You may think you met a fun, Pink Floyd loving person with an age similar to your own, but how would you ever know? Walking up to someone and chatting with him or her does not give you tons of information about that person. How do you even know they are being genuine or if they are lying to your avatar's face?
I find it hard to believe Second Life communication could lead to communication outside the virtual world. How would you ever know which avatars to trust enough to meet in real life? Even though there are safe and non-violent people on Second Life, potential predators do exist. It would be difficult to build up enough trust to meet someone in person if Second Life were the only means of communication.
It could be argued that Second Life would not lead to people wanting to meet in real life; they would just maintain online communication. There is no danger in this, but what happens when people start feeling real emotions of friendship or love toward their online friends? I personally would be miserable if I could online chat and walk around with an avatar of a person that I considered my true friend. Being face to face with someone creates different feelings than being with someone virtually. At least with AIM and texting you have met the person in the past and know them outside of that specific means of communication. That other form of interaction eliminates the problem of deception that Second Life encompasses. How Linden Lab addresses this problem could potentially change Second Life drastically, but it may be worth it to know the truth about those who you are encountering in order to make this communication technology stronger.
The biggest problem holding Second Life back as a communication technology is the lack of knowledge about the avatars you meet
ReplyDeleteThis claim led me to 10 observations:
1."biggest" is a strong word that could be argued by different people
2. you are passionate about making it even easier to communicate in Second Life
3. Do you really want to know a lot about the avatars you meet??
4. Could crime go up because people know more about other people??
5. Would Second Life become a new site for people to give their resumes to get jobs??
6. Do really want to know that much about other avatars??
7. Would SL become a new site to find love?
8. Would we find more sexual predators on SL if they knew they could find a lot of info about people really easily?
9. Would there be a sharp decline in SL users if people knew their bosses(potential or current) could easily find out who each avatar was?
10. Maybe is would be better to lose that "feeling of the unknown"