Cyber Culture & Virtual Communities

1. How does the tool relate to the topic of the week?
The tool Secret Life relates to the topic of cyber-cultures and virtual communities because it deals with connecting people in a virtual based environment using avatars as representations of people. It can be used to bring numerous people together in different areas inside of the game based on their interests which is what virtual communities are sometimes made for. It also is a type of cyber-culture because it involves the creation of an avatar and allows people to live out a "second life" in a virtual environment rather than living in the real world which is what cyber-cultures sometimes involve.

2. What function does the tool serve?
Secret Life functions as a way for people to join together in a virtual community to socialize with others. It allows people to create an avatar and socialize with others who share similar interests in a virtual environment rather than simply chatting with them in a chat room or on a social network like Facebook. The avatar allows people to create a fantasy character with which to act out different actions like dancing instead of just chatting with the person online and can potentially act as a representation of the person instead of using a picture like on Facebook, assuming the person chooses an actual humanoid avatar. The tool also functions as a way for people to pretend to possibly be someone their not and have their avatar act in a way they normally wouldn't because of the anonymity provided by the avatar.

3. What did you find most interesting about the tool?
I found the Secret Life interesting because you could travel to different areas that were designed for specific interests and chat with other people in those areas or have your avatar act out some action in them like dancing. I also thought it was interesting that college classes were using Second Life as a learning environment and it would be interesting to learn more about how they were using it and why. I would have also liked to see how designing the environment works but it seemed like that was something for people who paid for Secret Life rather than just people who played for free.

4. What did you find most challenging?
I found moving around the world to be rather difficult because of how long sections took to load. The controls were rather difficult at first also because every time I flew I had trouble landing or else my avatar would look strange when I did land because I was using the cat avatar and it would look like it was upside down when trying to land. This also happened when I changed to other avatars too, although I never used a humanoid avatar so don't know if it would happen with them too.

5. How does the tool improve or complicate communication?
I think Secret Life improves communication because it is an easy place for people to join together online and talk with others about different topics. It also allows people to express themselves by designing their avatar how they want it to look and to possibly express themselves differently due to the anonymity of their avatars. It complicates communication I think though because people may be more cautious due to the anonymity of the avatars since people can be non-humanoid avatars or a person could have an avatar of the opposite gender. People may also attempt to live out their lives in the game instead of in the real world and lose the ability to communicate effectively with people in the real world because they become more comfortable living in the game than the real world.

6. What is your critique of your experience?
Overall I found Secret Life to be interesting but it was not incredibly enjoyable. I did not find much purpose in the game besides socializing with others and I don't feel an avatar is necessary since the communication method is still based in a chat window as it would be on a chat site like Facebook. I found a few world's that were designed rather creatively, one was like a museum of sorts with kind of ancient architecture which was cool to see. The other worlds seemed to be based on just introducing new people to the game and providing free stuff to design their avatar differently.  I would have been interested to see how the college classes use the game or how to build locations but that required a payment and I would not want to spend the money just to see what its like.