Week after week, year after year, Australia's police-men and -women put their lives on the line for us. Even when we're ungrateful and unpleasant about it. They see the best and the worst of us, and they keep on going. The Western Australia police force have a recruiting center newly established in the virtual environment Second Life -- and there's some interesting stories being told there.

You see, there's a peculiar issue with the police force in Western Australia which has long been under the radar for local print-media. It took Second Life and the Metaverse Journal's Feldspar Epstein to bring it to light, and now the Western Australian print-media is buzzing with it.

	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.

Continue reading Second Life publicizes din of inequity

Second Life publicizes din of inequity originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

That's the money-quote from Seshat Czeret in Feldspar Epstein's piece on disability and accessibility at The Metaverse Journal this week. Really, those five words condense thousands of written words on the empowering properties of a collaborative virtual environment, and not just for the differently-abled, but for the regularly able as well.

It is interesting to note that those with physical limitations and disablements tend to view their own physical bodies as a physical, fleshy avatar far more frequently than those who have no such impairment. To the physically handicapped, the body may not function as it ought, but their minds and persons are as whole and complete as any. Many view their bodies as simply a malfunctioning vehicle, and their step into online avatars in a 3D environment is as slight a transition as getting into a car and driving.

To many such physically impaired users, the body is no more nor less a tool than an online avatar, and the latter (despite lag, occasional inventory loss, network problems and all the other hurly-burly of a virtual environment) is the more reliable, expressive and liberating, allowing more ability to contribute, work, play and socialize.

Why then, do the able-bodied among us tend to see so much more distinction between our bodies in the physical world and our digital representations? Is that distinction merely an artificial one, a handicap brought about by our able-bodied perspective?

	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.

"Second Life is my wheelchair" originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

By now, if you've been keeping track of the metrics, it should come as no surprise to you that Linden Lab's virtual environment Second Life is dominated by Generation X and Baby Boomers. Generation Y (also popularly called Millennials) don't make much of a mark on the landscape of Second Life at all. While the boxing and labeling of generations in this fashion seems a little arbitrary, it is commonly done as demographers identify various key socio-cultural differences between the groups, though the edge-cases between them, of course, tend to be a bit blurry -- and everyone, of course, is an individual.

The Metaverse Journal's Feldspar Epstein looks at assorted issues with the use of Second Life and education as it pertains to Millenials. In a broader social context, however, the generation gap between the Boomers/GenXers and the Millennials is starkly apparent. Millennials consistently number among the least active users of Second Life. The Baby Boomers dominate the virtual environment's usage landscape, followed closely by the Generation Xers.

	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.

Continue reading Second Life's generation gap

Second Life's generation gap originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Metaverse Journal's Feldspar Epstein has just finished an three part series exploring addiction, in the context of Virtual Worlds Addiction and Internet Addiction.

While many of us may refer to ourselves as addicts, the fact that these two categories even exist in the public consciousness at all is a testament to fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of both physical and psychological addiction, as Epstein explains.

What is addiction, how does it affect us, and is heavy, regular usage enough to qualify? Check out parts one, two and three, and sit back and consider the role of the Internet and virtual worlds in your life and in the lives of others.

Addiction, the Internet and virtual worlds originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.