Culture In Second Life

Anthropology is about imagining yourself standing virtually in the shoes of another culture. In order to keep up with the realities of technological change Boellstorff wrote, “Coming Of Age In Second Life”. By using the methods of participant observation and interviews, the anthropological study provides an ethnographic portrait of the culture of Second Life. Second life includes many subcultures that contains many mistake notions of identity and style. The author works to analyze the cultural practices and beliefs within them to display that these virtual worlds are a reflection of human lives because human lives have been “virtual” all along. It is in being virtual that we are human and human nature wants individuals to experience life through

The author underlines the importance of the visual aspects of Second Life and how a sense of place, increased through landscape and home-ownership, is fundamental to residents in this virtual world. Chapter 4, "Place and Time," focuses on the importance of place in understanding the virtual world. This chapter demonstrates that the residents of Second Life are preoccupied with place, even though that place is virtual and not actual. The world of Second Life is based on geography which includes land, water, mainland, and islands. Every resident can own land, build on it, or buy and sell it. The author implies that the sense of place can operate through the capitalist logic of ownership and even profit, but it is often shaped by other forms of special sociality. These different visions of place are not entirely separate and can be related to each other. The way time and place work together in Second Life is very interesting as well. While "the virtuality of online worlds inheres in their status as places" (102), there is a disjuncture between online and offline time. An example of this is displayed by the phenomenon of lag which is a delay that occurs due to a slow Internet connection or a heavy stream of information, causing images to appear slowly. This distinct phenomena reveals that "even when space is virtual, time is actual" and also

A lot of times throughout the book, I was thinking that the virtual world does not give an individual the same feelings, emotions, or needs one would obtain if they were expressing and living in the actual world. I understand that a resident of Second Life has the ability to create their own avatar however they’d like and decorate their house as well, but it separates an individual from accomplishing self love with the looks they already have and feeling satisfied after putting their hard work into the house they already own in the actual world. Boellstorff explained that some individuals use Second Life to simply isolate themselves from everyone else because they simply want to be alone. I believe that the use of the platform of Second Life as an escape is reflective of the nature of humans. It is exemplified in one way in the book mainly but it comes about in many things people do everyday like listening to music or other activities. Boellstorff takes an interesting take on the issue of social interaction by incorporating aspects of culture. Culture heavily connects to the formation of programs like second life because they take advantage, not necessarily in a negative way, the need for humans to escape their real