Friday, March 7, 2008

I agree with a lot of people's blog posts about Second Life. I don't really get it. I never found it very enjoyable and at times it even seemed a bit creepy. But it's obviously very popular with some people, which makes me wonder why. So as usual I went straight to wikipedia and there was a lot of interesting stuff.

The section about arts and creativity in second life grabbed my attention. Apparently there are art galleries, museums, and even live concerts throughout second life. In a way this seems like an interesting use of second life: letting many people experience art and performances that are happening far away from them in real life. But I don't see why the whole virtual world with the avatars and everything is necessary. The wikipedia article even compares these 'live concerts' to webcasts of performances. People have access to these things without making a character and navigating a virtual world and I can't really imagine what second life could add to the experience. Seeing computer animated versions of the musicians playing and hearing the music in my computer speakers doesn't sound very engaging. I'd rather just watch live video of a band's performance on youtube. That seems a lot closer to the real thing.

It seems like all the useful or positive things that you can do in second life (such as communicating with a variety of people, hearing music, seeing art) can be done on the internet without the illusion of a 3D world. The part of the overall experience that this virtual world adds doesn't seem useful or positive at all. I think Steve Hall put it well in his blog post. He said something about second life being a magnifying glass for the mundane aspects of reality. And I completely agree with that. Moving around (walking, running, flying) was tedious. It was like walking from place to place in real life except more confusing and without the enjoyment of physically being outside and moving through an environment and the feeling of actually going somewhere.

No comments: