That's the question that keeps coming up. You may as well ask "What is the Internet?" or the telephone, for that matter. The simple fact of it is, that the answer is different for every user. That's why the media, businesses, universities, educators, students, writers and, indeed, all of us grapple with it every day. Oh, we can say "it's a collaborative virtual world", but that's a bit like calling film "flickering images on a white wall".
Because at the end of the day, it isn't what Second Life is that makes it what it is -- it's what you do with it. It's that human context that makes it something -- and that context is different for everyone. That's why it annoys the crap out of people sometimes.
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Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop. |
Oh, sure, it'd be so much simpler if it just cooked rice, or shelled eggs or dug postholes, or displayed advertising or brokered business transactions or washed dishes or printed books or operated as a game. Then we'd have a nice comfortable pigeon-hole to put it into, without having to actually use it or think about it.
People aren't that simple. Second Life is both persistent and dynamic. Dynamic, because it is always changing -- constantly in response to the actions, attitudes and behaviors of its users. Persistent, because each little change, every tiny alteration is a permanent one -- and that process continues whether you are personally online in Second Life or not. Sometimes it holds its breath, but it never ever sleeps.
Because of this, it takes time for the personal context to kick in and settle. Whatever Second Life is to you, it isn't something that you'll figure out in an hour, or a day. It might take six months, or a year before your personal experience crystallizes -- and even then, your experience of it a year later just won't be the same.
Second Life extends the atomic world and adds options to your life. Options that you can use, abuse, ignore, profit from, disparage, or misuse. Just don't drive yourself crazy trying to fit it into a box or feel like you are somehow compelled to do something with it. The only box it fits into is the one we all occupy together.
