Second Life

In class, I watched a video that included a presentation and interview with Philip Rosedale. As the creator of a virtual world, "Second Life," Rosedale discussed his idea behind the creation. "Second Life" is a 3-D world created by those living in it. It became open to the public in 2003, and has continuously grown and is used by millions of people from all around the world. In this world, you can buy, sell, trade, and meet people. To begin, users create a digital avatar of themselves. This avatar can be created to look however the user would like, and includes a variety of looks, hairstyles, clothing, and other items.
Rosedale explained that ever since he was a child, he was constantly fascinated with the idea of building and creating new things. His ideas were sometimes too big to tackle, and his dream was to live in a world with no boundaries and nothing to hold one back from creating. His world has free, public access to anyone. The word has everything. Users have the ability to buy anything from land to the ability to have babies.
Though "Second Life" is an interesting and very new type of reality, I'm not sure if it's for me. In an interview, Rosedale has been quoted to say that "Second Life" users end up preferring their online lives over their real lives. I'm not sure how this makes me feel about the idea of it. It would be interesting to see the different types of people, communities, buildings, and other things that people have used "Second Life" to build. Whether or not I set up my own account is still debatable, but regardless, I find the idea of the 3-D world to be fascinating and intriguing.