The first Chapter of “Coming to Age in Second Life” was interesting yet confusing at times. Basically the author (an anthropologist who studies sexuality of Indonesia) decided to study virtual worlds (in this case second life). The chapter goes into detail on many different aspects of what the author is trying to accomplish. He writes about notions of the uprising of virtual environments and elaborates on certain things one can do in Second Life. The author describes certain conversations he’s had or certain events he has gone to in the program. Also he started two discussion groups in Second Life where avatars go and discuss about what they are doing. Furthermore he goes into detail about virtual life compared to real life or virtual vs actual.
In conjunction with my first experience of Second Life, the author described how when he presents his data about his fieldwork with the program he gets negative reactions form people. He states that one of the reaction that people have is that virtual communities are just an escape from the real world. This is something I perceived about Second Life as well, but now I see that isn’t quite the case. People can actually make real world money in Second life. Also people just hang out and do there own thing. The author states that he noticed that some people in second life can be loners. They just play a board game or watch the ocean. It’s a place of many social interactions, business opportunities, and to be creative. To me, it’s a place to share your own vision of your world and you can be creative with it.