Analyzing “Second Life” through the theories of Weinberger

Lauren Charley

Analyzing “Second Life” through the theories of Weinberger

“The internet represents a new world that we are just beginning to inhabit. However, unlike the real world, cyberspace has few rules of behavior and fewer lines of authority,” (Weinberger 42). My experience with Second Life in our Cyber Communications lab was very different to anything that I had really experienced before. Although the avatars and world looked similar to the online Sims game, the fact that I was one character who lived and communicated in a functioning, virtual world was a unique experience. A lot of the characteristics and operations of Second Life related very closely to both the concept of immediacy discussed in lecture, and also to David Weinberger’s article A New World (Small Pieces Loosely Joined).

In the commercial advertising Second Life that we watched in class, the website is advertised as, “A place to connect, a place to shop, a place to work, a place to love, a place to explore. Be different, be yourself. Free your mind, change your mind, change your look, love your love, love your life,”. The second life experience ties in very well with the concept of “immediacy”. Immediacy erases reminders that the media is a representation of what you are experience, and makes the audience feel like they are part of the experience. Second Life advertises itself as a place to “love your life” and creates the illusion that your fantasy life in an online world is your reality. It is necessary for online users to be critical of their online surroundings and make sure that it does not consume too much of their real lives, as sites that portray this immediacy often become very addicting.
Weinberger states that the web is an unnatural world, one we have built for ourselves,” (Weinberger 43).When in second life, it is easy to get caught up in what is happening and the virtual surroundings, and you become immersed in what appears to be reality. This fantasy cyber world is almost like a perfect version of how the users envision a perfect reality to be. When I became frustrated with Second Life and trying to figure out how to get a job, it was overwhelming until I leaned back in my seat and looked at my classmates around me. It was like snapping back into the real world.
In Weinberger’s story of Michael Ian Campbell who sent a girl a cyber threat as a joke threatening to shoot up her school, the idea of the web as a new world means that “new worlds create new people,” (Weinberger 45). Campbell had never been the type who would ever send a threat, even as a joke, but with being so involved in cyberspace, he adopted a new personality. This is similar to Second Life in the way that we can choose who we are and who we want to be. Users can even use their real money to buy space, commodities and clothes in the virtual world that they can’t buy in real life. What I find interesting about Second Life is that you have no idea who is on the other side of the screen. A rich, good looking, entrepreneur in Second Life could be the guy who pumps your gas in real life.
Weinberger also brings up the question of whether being sociable on the web is different from being sociable in real life. He uses the example of .Zannah, a female user with a web-blog who is very mysterious about her identity online, but has many online friends and followers. “Is she being sociable on the web?” (Weinberger 47). One could argue the same about Second Life. Are these relationships that we have with other users in the world real relationships, or are they something else? Is there anything different between someone who lives an extraordinary life in reality, and someone who lives an equally extraordinary life on second life? Different people may have different answers. I personally do not think that virtual worlds like Second Life are real experiences or real relationships, because it is all fake. Your husband on Second Life may have an entirely different ego; but you’ll never know.
As Weinberger quotes, “Just as the opposite of democracy was aristocracy, the opposite of the virtual world of the web is the real world,” (Weinberger 48). I agree with this statement one hundred percent. The real world and the virtual world are two binary oppositions, yet it is very easy to confuse the two when we are so immersed in these types of virtual realities like Second Life. The tougher question is also when we consider social networks like Facebook. Do our conversations and time spent on the website count as experiences? Although Facebook provides a link to a sort of virtual world and the real world, the defining borders of what exactly counts as a virtual reality become very unclear. As users of the web, we need to be very critical of what we are experiencing and to not let it consume our lives. Of course we need to enjoy the web for all the unique ways of digitally communicating that it has given us, but we must not let ourselves fall too victim to immediacy.


Works Cited
Second Life - The Online 3D Virtual World. Dir. Kerria Seabrooke. YouTube. ILL Clan Animation Studio for Linden Lab, 25 Aug. 2009. Web. 30 Jan. 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3gHCupXSMs.

Weinberger, David. "A New World (Small Pieces Loosely Joined)." Living in the Information Age - A New Media Reader. By Erik P. Bucy. Second ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2005. 42-49. Print.

There is no doubt that distance-bridging technologies are changing the way the world connects and interacts. Increased communication between people and the building of networks creates endless opportunities for global expansion and advancement. In Frances Cairncross's article, "The Trendspotter's Guide to New Communications", she outlines the different ways in which the "death of distance" is shaping the global and social economies (Cairncross 7). However, the list of 30 reasons how technology will change the world for the better is an extremely optimistic and idealistic compilation of supposed facts. All of the reasons imply a technologically deterministic outlook on communication: the technologies that have helped to conquer distance seem to provide a solution to all social and economic problems that have arisen throughout history. Although technology certainly creates more opportunities for communication throughout the world, to say that it is the answer to all of life’s problems is ignoring the important and unique social dynamic that the use of that technology brings.

For example, number 17 states that "...third world countries will have access to knowledge that the industrial world has long enjoyed" (Cairncross 8). This statement does not acknowledge the extreme social problems that most third world countries are facing that inhibit their use of widely used communication technologies, such as famine, drought, and unstable political structures. Another problem that is overlooked in this generalization is the reliance on the Western world by third world countries for the majority of their information. The communicated information is mainly coming from countries such as Canada, the United States and Britain. This severely limits the perspective and viewpoint of the information being communicated, as most of it will be written with Western ideals and values in mind. The reason for this comes down to the power and capitalistic prospects that communication technologies have, and their value to those in the West. While in an ideal world the “remotest corners of the world” would have equal say in the information that is meant to educate and shape well-rounded opinions, the social and economic conditions of the third world do not allow them to be subjected to anything but Western views of important issues (Cairncross 8). Although the intent of this statement is to emphasise the distance-conquering properties of new communication technologies, to generalize the effects of a technology on a geographic location is to overlook the social and political limits of that society.

Another problematic statement is number 28 which says, “Electronic mail will induce young people to express themselves effectively in writing and to admire clear and lively written prose” (Cairncross 9). By implying that electronic mail is an exact substitute for a pen and paper in academic situations is ignoring the reasons why people choose to write e-mails rather than letters. The advent of e-mail not only puts an end to the long distance that letters had to travel to get to the recipient, it also serves as a faster and more efficient means of communication. In this sense, e-mail can be seen as the denigrator of educational writing, as its main purpose is to get directly to the point as efficiently and quickly as possible. While historically the elegance and complexity of diction was seen as a distinguishing mark of education, in the age of e-mail, the shorter and more concise the words are, the more impact they appear to have. Crispin Thurlow agrees in his article “Generation Txt? The Sociolinguistics of Young People’s Text-messaging” that new communications such as e-mail and text messaging are “…completely individual ways[s] to express yourself” (Thurlow 1). However, the claim that young people will indulge in the use of clear and effective writing seems to be contrary to the popular trend called texting: “As a dialect, text ('textese'?) is thin and unimaginative. It is bleak, bald, sad shorthand. Drab shrinktalk. The dialect has a few hieroglyphs (codes comprehensible only to initiates) and a range of face symbols. … Linguistically it's all pig's ear. … Texting is penmanship for illiterates” (Thurlow 1). It seems that instead of becoming more clear and concise writers, young people have adapted a new language that is both confusing and isolating, as it relies on a premeditated set of rules and knowledge of the language in order to understand. Ideally, an electronic interface for writing would do nothing to the actual content or style of writing other than communicating the information over a greater distance. However, when predicting the use of a technology out of social context, it is impossible to foresee how the technology will actually be used.

New communication technologies often have predicted outcomes that are overly optimistic. Although it is very important to observe the many opportunities that these new technologies will create, and to acknowledge their positive impact on certain aspects of social and economic communication, it is also important to consider the social variables that are involved. When disconnecting the technology from the free-thinking people that are using them, there becomes the danger of providing a misleading outlook as to how the technology will impact society.

Works Cited
Cairncross, Francis. “The Trendspotter’s Guide to new Communications.” Living In The Information Age. Ed. Erik P.Bucy. 2nd ed. Belmont: Thompson Learning Inc. 2005. 7-9.

Thurlow, Crispin. “Generation Txt? The Sociolinguistics of Young People’s Text-Messaging.” .