Second Life

benefit since it encourages users to cease to discover unknown possibilities and merely acting within their comfortable areas (222). Stites’s vivid demonstration suggests the virtual world as the ideal environment for people to be in: “Ostensibly, there are no flaws in this world” (Stites 179). Additionally, she still falls into “awkward social situations” (Stites 178) at offline parties even after becoming one of these groups’ respective members. Inevitably, she prefers to be in the “SecondLife” where she gets her life under control and is able to escape from the imperfect reality, as she claims, she cannot stop herself from logging back in the “SecondLife” site to live in her character (Stites 179). Stites is not the only one choosing this solution; Payne writes in her article, “About percent said they used the Internet as a way to escape problems . . .” (457), which, unfortunately, leads to addiction. Overall, Stites is happy since she possesses her second life with a huge network of relationships. Melville, on the contrary, claims that technology has unhealthy effects on its users’ routines. While Payne and Stites touch on the mass media and its communities, Melville analyzes the personalized media and mentions the iPod as a prominent representative. The main statement in his article “Hell Is Other iPods: The Aural Loneliness of the Long-Distance Shuffler” is that the iPod promotes the incohesive tendency among the community: “In an age of atomization and social…

relationships. Most people are now accustomed to communicating online, where they can say whatever they want, with little consequence and because of this, real-life communication has become more scarce, and we value it significantly less. People become more shy because they are used to communicating without seeing the other person’s reactions. In fact, people can get so used to digital…

about something specific, they normally keep that opinion the length of their life. They stand up for it, debate others about it, and hold it as a higher opinion than other people's points of view. Oftentimes, opinions are based off what we grew up around, such as what our parents liked or disliked. For example, if your parents were religious, taught you about it, and took you to church, you most likely will end up living the same lifestyles as they did, being religious as well. Not everytime,…

Matt’s last words to me (Darra/Christine) were, “Thanks for keeping me sane”. Matt and I have known each other for the past eight years (in Second Life time that is 17,520 days); in that time we have explored Second life, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and a few other virtual worlds together. He encouraged me to become proficient at WOW and Guild Wars but alas, I am a bit challenged in multiplayer games nonetheless, his patience helped me level up. I use this term because Matt always helped…

How My Life Changed in the 2nd Grade It is fair to say that we all have life changing moments and experiences. How we see those moments and what those moments are change our lives forever. My second grade year was a life changing year for me. What started out to be a really tough time in my life turned out to be a blessing because of my second grade teacher, Ms. Rosie Tubbs, who is still in my life today. My second grade year started out to be what I thought to be one of the worst years and…

Is 60 Seconds Worth Someone's Life? July 2, 2005 the Flynn family changed forever. After her aunt’s wedding, 7-year-old Katie Flynn headed home along with her parents, sister, and her grandparents in a limousine. CNN reported that this happy day full of celebration and love changed in the blink of an eye. A drunk 24-year-old, Martin Heidgen, whose blood alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit, hit the limo carrying the Flynn family head-on. Heidgen was driving 70 mph down the…

many forms of culture, which is the one that we live in everyday. Tom Boellstorff, the author of Coming to Age in Second Life, is not one of those people. In this ethnography, Boellstorff challenges that there is more than one real world and that virtual worlds have culture just as places in the real world do. The topic of virtual worlds or virtual reality is becoming more and more prominent in this age of technology and this is a reason why Boellstorff chose it to research. The term virtual…

The second aphorism that has altered my perception on things was, “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” (pg.52) Once I grasped a deeper understanding for this aphorism, I began to open up to the idea of love. Sometimes we forget the most valuable things in life. We get so preoccupied with wealth, and material things that we disregard the things that truly make us happy. Without this concept of love, society would be miserable. Love allows us…

Additionally, the evolution of electricity during the Second Industrial Revolution enabled advancements in transportation and communication that would assist in connecting people throughout the world. Before this era, larges cities were overcrowded with horse-drawn traffic because “the cheapest car cost twice a worker’s annual pay.” However, through the advances in electric motors and the mass production of vehicles, transportation became affordable to the middle class. People began to relocate…

The Longest 10 Seconds of My Life I will never forget where I was in the bank that day when he came in the door. It was nearly 5:30 on a Friday, which meant it was almost the weekend. What made it even more exciting was I did not have to work on Saturday. We had started the preparations for closing so we would be able to walk out the door as close to 6:00 as possible. I had my back turned counting the money one of the floating tellers had just sold to me. It was a very laid back environment…