Ch. 3 Thoughts
As I read this book I am beginning to understand second life a little bit better and am sort of getting the idea behind it. Chapter 3 was a big part in helping my understanding because honestly the first two chapters were a bit confusing to me. Since we are now exploring more in second life; my group was studying the semiotics of the virtual world, it easier to go about doing so after reading about the author’s way of going about doing those things. The author believes that second life is a culture of it’s own therefore it should be studied. People from all over can use the virtual world of second life as a social newtworking tool, much like facebook or myspace, only in is much more interactional and visual. The author’s avatar did all of the exploring for him in order to get the information he was researching in second life by doing the same type of things that our small groups are doing in class. He conducted interviews with other avatars, he studied the layout of the different “worlds” of second life, and interacted with the world by buying clothes and a house and what not. It was interesting to see the findings on all of the different cultures intergrated in second life; it is like a big melting pot of anyone from anywhere, so the interaction between the different cultures inside of second life is important to take note of as well. The only to fully understand another culture is to put yourself in there and study it in depth and that is exactly what he did with second life, and that is what we are starting to do as a class.