another student blog comment

Responding to 'What is Second Life?'

I found this post massively interesting, engaging and thorough; I enjoyed your concept of secondlife as a second chance.  Even though I have not played the game before, I’m still familiar with elements relating to secondlife that you discussed so concisely: hiding behind a virtual character, finding success in the online world when it’s lacking in the offline world, etc.  I’m glad you clarified that secondlife is also seen as a social tool and a niche online community, in a sense, and THEN made your statement regarding secondlife as a second chance.

Even as a non-player, this post was fascinating.

I would have liked to see more exploration, and more of your view, regarding your conception of the virtual world as a second chance.  Do you think that it’s healthy for users to “hide away?”  In a sense, I can understand WHY a player would choose to do so, especially ones that “have no interest in how the real world runs,” as you said, but it’s difficult for me to accept that this is healthy behaviour. 

You state that secondlife “builds confidence on users who lack self confidence.”  Does this confidence have real worth though, if it's all generated in a virtual world?  “Secondlife hides the negative appearances or internal behaviour.”  Again, I can understand why a person struggling socially or personally would want to “configure a new behaviour and appearance” online, but in the long term, I feel this is damaging rather than healing - masking a problem through a secondlife persona, and effectively ignoring it.  Feel free to disagree with me!