Chapter 1
Chapter one of Coming of age in Secondlife discusses the differences that exist between the virtual world and real life. Tom Boellstorff, an anthropologist talks about how his studies of human nature have carried over into the virtual world. He approaches the secondlife with an anthropological approach questioning how humans respond to it both personally and socially. He claims, “It might seem controversial to claim one can conduct reseach entirely inside a virtual world, since persons in them spend most of their time in the actual world and because virutal worlds reference and respond to the actual world in many ways.” This I feel is one of the key component of what Boellstorff is trying to discuss in chapter one. He spends a lot of time focusing on how people have made secondlife a normal part of their everyday lives, and how this has socially constructed their way of interaction with themselves as vitual beings versus themselves as actual beings.
In thinking about my virtual self in terms of Boellstorff’s work I can put my hands around what he is saying, but I don’t know that I necessarilly agree with it. Virtual life is still very new to me and it is hard for me to put my views in retrospect seeing as I still feel that I still have much to learn about it. I have constructed my avatar and have pulled some useful information from the book but feel that applying this is still much needed.