CH 7 coming of age in second life

The seventh chapter of the book “Coming of Age in Second Life” has an interesting discussion about “beyond the virtual worlds” in which the author talks about how members of virtual worlds maintain forums, blogs, and many other different websites that pertain to the virtual world itself. He recalled a situation in which second life had gone down or been hacked, and people couldn’t get on.  Furthermore he comments on how members of second life said that they would find an alternative means of online social interaction by talking on blogs and forums.  He said they create a sort of “virtual, virtual world.” they go beyond second life and socially interact in other ways.  I feel this is an important concept that the author touched upon.  Also, he talks about how some residence meet there online friends in the actual world.  He said that most residence (at least those he encountered in his fieldwork) did not feel it was necessary to meet their SL friends on the real world because it destroys the illusion of the virtual world.  I find this interesting because people in second life really want to maintain that alternate life and do not what thins to cross over.  This idea of SL differs it from other social networking sites online because in those applications and sites, who meet people online to meet in the actual world.  Members of SL don’t seem to want to do that and just interact with each other with their avatars.  It’s quite unique.