Here's a picture of me in Knightsbridge, tired, lonely and badly dressed. I just wanted to go home but I didn't have one. Being in Second life was like one of my worst existentialist nightmares. It began promisingly enough on a wharf in Brazil. Spunky, young people appeared out of a ghost-like mist from time to time, sometimes naked. A dragon flew overhead. Lizzie from Romania wanted to be my friend. We talked about the weather then she disappeared forever. I tried to change my appearance. I wanted fishnet stockings, sparkly shoes and spikey hair like Lizzie but couldn't figure out where to get them. I should have read the Knowledge Base before logging in.I changed my location (Brazil is hot at this time of year) and somehow got to Knightsbridge. I tried talking to two scantily dressed girls named Brandi and Crystelle but neither acknowledged me, probably a good thing. They spoke in an unknown language anyway. Then I just wandered around the empty streets watching the traffic lights change over and over again. It was dark. There was no one around. I got scared. Time to log off!
I'm sure my computer and the bandwidth caused problems. Things moved slowly. But there were also too many things to learn in one go and I was never sure if it was me, my computer or the internet which was causing a problem.
Second Life also presented me with plenty of social and visual cognition challenges. I didn't know anything about the social norms or roles so I didn't know how to fit in and I couldn't use the usual visual clues about people, eg age and attire, to decide who to approach.
I can see the attraction of Second Life. I could pretend to be a bloke, or a Romanian, or get a job as a pole dancer. I'd probably prefer, however, to investigate its educational uses.
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