In a world where time has no meaning

[twilight33]

Despite the fact it is actually 9:30, all the automated time displays on our phones (that we have no control over) state that it is 10:00. This time warp apparently happened sometime in the past half hour. If it continues and we can claim it as actual time worked, I will be thrilled but somehow I doubt we'll get away with that.

Any of you poke around on Second Life or know others that do? The Washington Post (yes, link is to Seattle Times but WP makes you sign up to view) covered it from a health angle & the Mother Ship is kicking in some serious funding so it has me curious.

Comments

[saffyre-dragon.livejournal.com]

Hadn't heard of Second Life until recently and this is the first time I've seen any description of what it is. I find it interesting, though, that lately I've been wondering about the possible benefits for mental health through fantasy/anonymous realms. Lately I've been obsessively playing WoW and in the past few months I've had 6 different people chat with me about the problems they've been having IRL. Usually relationship troubles. But I think that they are able to say private thoughts and fears to me, someone they don't know and will never meet, easier than to their friends and associates.

I'd be really curious about some of the research done on this phenomenon.

[twilight33]

The health information in SL is at a place called Health Info Island. What I had no idea about until I found this is how other government agencies are investing serious time & capital in it as an interactive information resource. There are 9 million users and that's exploded from when the article earlier this month said there were 6.

My husband's & my brains have been off all day thinking about the possibilities for this, as he puts it It's basically becoming a new form of communication. Websites are one sided. Chat channels are graphically limited. People log on to WoW to play a game. If people are logging on to SL to learn something or just hang out it's a very different mind set and with real money even partially involved people will take it much more seriously.

I think this will be my project when I graduate, with the knowledge I've gained from my health informatics education to go in as a secret shopper and see if the information and resources there are of the value I'd expect in f2f. I know better than to even let myself sign up for an account now ;)

[twilight33]

month = year, duh. I hate that we can't edit our comments.