Today I visited Coca Cola I found that all the buildings seemed undeveloped, as they were all white and the mass of white made navigating difficult, as it wasn’t always clear what were what as well as everything looking the same. I found a bench and started a conversation with yet another American! They seem to be everywhere in this virtual realm. He was rather charming and this was when I realised this could be a place known for meeting people something I didn’t know about! But this conversation was not the one I felt was worthy of blogging but I did feel my rather amusing conversation with MrSteel was worth taking your time to read. He cleverly got my attention saying 'nice to see you again' which I thought was amusing since I had never seen him before whilst exploring there. But I thought I would play along and see how far he went with it, which he continued to ask how’s the family which I thought was a clever way of making out that he knew a little more about me.
Another female avatar then interrupted our conversation saying that she was his girlfriend and how he had ended it after five minutes etc. I knew straight away she was young by the way she was typing and the things she was saying, and indeed I was right as she turned out to be only 12! I found it strange to think that a 12 year old was on a virtual world and could be chatting to anyone of any age and building relationships with them. It was then that I realised there are no representatives of age in the avatars, such as having a teenager, adult and elder which may be a better way of helping to represent people more safely in an online world. Which is an important issue that has yet to be dealt with especially with the age related issues, talking to another multimedia member who had seen an article on a news program about Paedophiles searching for younger girls in second life and transporting them to a special place, and I can see how easy it is since this 12 year old seemed to be obsessed with dating people on There. I also found it intriguing that I knew straight away that she was younger by her tone, which of course I couldn’t actually here in her voice but I could in my own reading of what she had written, and I realised its hard to put across a tone when typing a conversation and that an important factor of a real conversation is lost.
I also found it strange that whilst the guy was chatting me up using any line he possibly could, that he only wanted to date for an hour, it seemed that commitment was still not a priority and that within the virtual world it was easier to just date within seconds as you did not have all the insecurities you may feel when talking to someone in the real world.
Appearance again came into play as a key thing just as it does in the real world as he changed his appearance to help make me attracted to him more, however this was not successful since he was talking to me and personality is a lot more important to me then appearance.
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