preconceptions and first impressions of second life

Hello again, I think that now would be a good time to tell you about my preconceptions and first impressions of using second life. I've been aware of second life for some years now but never had the desire to use it for myself of even to check it out. Before using it I was only aware vaguely of what exactly it was through what I had heard from other people here and there and from references from various TV shows in online content.

I was also aware of second life, (as most people are with regards to online environments that they have never experienced or know little about) through shocking stories of abusing the format, such stories of men posing as women online, sexual predators luring their victims through second life, people creating expansion files so their avatars can have sexual relations and the case of a woman who sued a man for using his avatar for raping her avatar.(1)

This seems to be the case with most online communities that we hear the negative things about them rather than the positive and these stories did help shape my preconceptions of second life before entering into it but although I knew of these things I didn't go in completely disgusted or dead set against SL I did keep an open mind.

My first impressions of second life were ones of amusement, when I had initially heard of the virtual environments module it struck me as being something that just wasn't for me but from hearing from my friends who were in the class it started to sound more and more appealing and I decided to try it out if for anything else just to have a laugh with my friends. In keeping with this idea I decided not to make my avatar resemble myself or make it a human being at all for that matter my avatar was and still is a dog. I think this helped me to feel relaxed and enjoy the experience and put to bed any reservations I had about being on SL since my avatar was a dog it kind of showed in some way that I wasn't using SL to forge a " second life" for myself. 

My first impressions of the environment there on were quite positive I went to Dublin and noticed the streaming music and also the near total lack of other avatars other then myself. I will admit that I am impressed by the fact that everything in SL is designed by members and some of the attention to detail is amazing. Dublin in a way struck me as a bit of a ghost town perhaps, possibly there used to be a lot more "life" there than there is now considering the amount of content there compared to the amount of avatars.  So when I did meet up with friends in second life I found the experience very enjoyable and amusing, I did do some traveling on my own to other destinations such as London but found strangers a lot harder to gauge and the sheer amount of avatars out there made it very difficult to hold down a conversation which was not enjoyable.

so to conclude I found the design and idea of SL very impressive and very enjoyable when amongst friends whom I knew from the real world but then again what place isn't enjoyable when you bring enough of your friends...... I think that I want to experience more of what second life has to offer on my own so I can formulate a proper opinion on it.

:) Keith

1. http://virtuallyblind.com/2007/04/24/open-roundtable-allegations-of-virtual-rape-bring-belgian-police-to-second-life/