Been into Second Life yet? For the uninitiated, it's a web world where you can be whoever you want to be, choose an avatar and fly, teleport or otherwise transport yourself around a virtual world. You can buy and sell property or services using what equates to 'real' money - known as the 'Linden' and make your fortune. You can converse with wizards and lizards, superheroes, superzeroes and exotic animals, and even the odd politician. (They are all odd if you ask me)
Watch out though, because everywhere is the 'hard sell'. From the start, at the registration stage, you are 'given opportunities' to purchase Lindens in exchange for real Dollars or Pounds, or any other dosh you have in your pockets (read 'credit card'). Yet one and a half million people can't be wrong can they? That's the official headcount of people who regularly use Second Life (BBC News - Click Programme).
Makes you wonder. If this is a 'second life' for some people - is it more happy than their first life, and are they more fulfilled flying around as a blue fairy with golden wings? Will Second Life replace real life for real people, becoming as real if not more real for them than Real Life? Really?
Will there be a need for hospitals and rehab clinics in SL? When will the first prisons open up in Second Life, and what will you have to do to earn parole? Crimes have already been committed in SL, including breach of copyright on other people's property and ideas, and an attack of the worms. (I hate it when that happens).
For teachers, what will be the implications for education? Will there be schools? Is SL something that can be used to teach kids the dangers of becoming too immersed in a virtual world. Can the SL type concept be used productively for learning? Or is it a no brainer?
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