Sherry Turkle's A Second Life

Synthetic, pretend, mock, fake, these are all synonyms to the word virtual. “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline shows the positives and negatives to living entirely in a virtual world. Although there are favorable aspects to developing and nurturing online friendships or even relationships there are fallible aspects as well that seem to outnumber what may appear harmless at first. In this book we are shown 3 different sets of online relationships, that of best friends, a couple and “brothers”. Aech and Wade are the first real relationship shown in this book and they model best friends. These two have been best friends for the past 4 years and have spent countless hours together playing video games, watching movies and just talking. Because

Furthermore, emotions that, previously, could only be gained from face-to-face interaction and work ethic, such as accomplishment, can now be obtained through simulations and virtual connectivity. Turkle expands on why that is through her observations of gamers and a very popular video game, the Sims. One of the factors she writes about connects to the previous point that these worlds are instantaneous. With a couple presses of keys or a click of a button, gratifying environments can be programmed rather than putting in the time or effort to experience natural ones in real life. For example, Turkle interviewed two girls on what the Sims means to them and both used the simulation game as a way of creating an environment in which they held all of the power; by just choosing which traits their Sims can have, they can achieve things within the game with a touch of a button (Turkle 437). Alongside the attractiveness of instant progress, dangers and complexity of real world situations are taken out of the equation when one immerses themselves in the virtual world. Margalit also states this idea by writing, “When playing a computer game, for example, we can experience excitement, frustration, and tension, but we can never be injured” (Margalit 2014). Not only does this apply to physical danger, but emotional risks that

This section, titled The Empathy Diaries, delves into observations made regarding the human ability to exert empathy in relation to the technological dependency they have developed. The latest generation of children have been constantly raised around technology. Not with technology, but around it. It’s been a bigger part of their lives than one can imagine. Christmas lists that, in previous generations, had been filled out with the wishes of bicycles and board games have been replaced with the wishes of iPhones and laptops for children ages as young as 9. The Empathy Diaries takes a look at what effects this shift has caused in younger generations of Americans. Thanks to the constant presence of technology, younger generations have

Many video games use visuals to mentally immerse gamers into a virtual world filled with seemingly living, breathing people, animals, or cities. According to Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey, game designers for Tale of Tales, video games increasingly develop into a true medium of artistic expression (Lamb). In just forty years, video games transformed from an abuse of the new computer for entertainment purposes into a sophisticated form of popular art. The development of video games recently produced results that arguably equal other similar, representational arts. Video games share many qualities with other forms of art, but they are also artistically significant in their own way. “This seems to be something

In the first reading, “Spectacular Interventions of Second Life,” author Burcu Bakioglu explores the practice of “griefing” in the game Second Life, which he describes as disruptive gameplay in the effort to negative affect the other players’ experiences (Bakioglu,

Video games were created to provide a unique, interactive experience for the user. This “experience” is something we can define as being fun, engaging, and interesting. This was the mindset of Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; he was extremely engaged and interested in his work regarding the monster. However, MMORPG’s represent the bad side to video games; in the same way that Frankenstein’s monster was the hellish subject that interested him, MMORPG’s still interest some users despite their lack of true video game “experience”. In fact, MMORPG’s cause addiction, separate families, lead to depression, and separate the user from real life, indicating that they are virtual “animals” that need to be tamed.

The rising generation is notorious for absorbing their lives with all things virtual. With the coming forth of new and advanced technology in recent years, the world has seen a shift in the trends and behaviors of the rising generation. In association to these advancements, we have seen improvements in things like medical care and worldwide communications, but we have also observed a sudden disinterest in human interaction as well as obsessive gaming addictions where users waste countless hours online. In a speech given to the students of Brigham Young University-Idaho, David A. Bednar addressed this topic as a means of guidance and direction for these young students. Bednar uses allusion, imagery, and specific word choice that taps into the

Nick Dunmore is given a sinister but brilliant computer game called Erebos. The game is highly addictive and asks its players to carry out actions in the real world in order to keep playing online- actions which become more and more manipulative. As Nick loses friends and all sense of right and wrong in the real world, he gains power and advances further towards his online goal: To become one of the Inner Circle of Erebos. But what is virtual and what is reality? How far will Nick go to achieve his goal? And what does Erebos really want? One of the key

In the article, “Hyperconnected,” Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler discuss the development of identities that are constructed from social networks. They use World of Warcraft to illustrate their main point, which is integrated with logical appeal (Logos) and ethical appeal (Ethos). Certainly, Nicholas and James comprehend that technology has blossom throughout the years, thus leading to the innovation of the printing press, the television, and the Internet, components that we depend on a daily-basis. Here they state that “Within this game, people form friendships, have sustained interactions as groups, communicate using instant messaging, collaborate to achieve shared goals, engage in economic transactions, and fight

The term “gamer” tends to be synonymous with “geek” in many people’s minds. They see gaming as a device that absorbs the majority of the time of the user, leaving them as mindless empty, pale husks with no ambitions other than beating that next boss or shooting the enemy in the face. However, few gamers waste their life away. On the contrary, many of these so-called geeks tend to be more social than the average person, and farther down the technological curve than most. For the truth is that gaming is a rather useful and beneficial hobby. It gives people an outlet to focus on, and can connect them with many others worldwide. It can teach and entertain at the same time, and can be a useful distraction at other times. In this essay then,

At the age of eight, all I have put effort on learning was begin competitive. The only one interest that became my addition of mine leads to my brother, who has introduced the Toon Town, an online gaming system, where every toon at different level have the opportunity to fight against the cogs with the amount of supplies they have; thereafter, the ones that survives through the fight earns toons’ laughter points to raise their toon levels up from the range as low as twenty-five to an extend as one-hundred thirty seven. The article by Sarah Adams, Be Cool to the pizza Dude demonstrates the ideal example of interacting with community. On the other hand, MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless is an article by the Onion, online networking news publisher convey the downhill side of having to deal with malfunction of their habitual social networking site. Becoming part of an online gaming community makes us all feel good since an online community meets people’s expectation for accepting who they really are truly defining that virtual community is a real community.

Sherry Turkle was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1948. She is a professor of Social Studies and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has written many works, such as Alone Together, and this article, The Flight from Conversation, was published in the New York Times in April of 2012. The claim she makes in the article is that communication technology is causing society to lose its ability to have a meaningful conversation. She presents several strong rhetorical strategies, and some weak ones, through logos, ethos, and pathos.

In the development of our culture starting as far back as some of us can remember, even before video games, children and youth have always been fascinated by violence and games involving role playing fantasy. From childhood with its innocuous games of cowboys and Indians, to cops and robbers, we have always looked to fantasy and make believe to entertain ourselves and at times escape from the reality of a very normal, mundane life. States Harold Schecter PhD, a professor of English at Queens College in New York City “I have little doubt that fifty years from now, parents will be raising a howl over virtual-reality shoot-‘em–ups that allow their kids to actually feel the splatting blood from the blown-off head of a holographic zombie, and that they will pine for the idyllic days of 2004, when children enjoyed such harmlessly cartoonish pastimes as Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto.”

On the other hand, online communities like Second Life limit peoples’ abilities of developing their own personalities. By projecting their lives onto avatars, it is hard to differentiate between the real world and the virtual world. Success and failure as well as capabilities and skills that are experienced online are oftentimes lacking in real life, although this is hardly noticed. (Scribner, 2007). It is so much easier to be everyone you want to be in the online world: The shy guy turns into a womanizer and the unemployed pretends to be a wealthy businessman driving a Mercedes. And while more and more time is spent online with the virtual alter ego, Second Life gradually becomes “First Life”. It is a time consuming activity that also need

In recent years, kids are largest number of virtual worlds users and participation of them in virtual worlds has grown (KZero, 2009). Virtual worlds are captivated children with some sort of characteristics such as immersive, imaginary and collaborative (Tuukkanen, Iqbal & Kankaanranta, 2010). At the same time, citizenship is an important sense that makes people come together and gain fellow feeling that we have for others in our community (O’Loughlin, 2006). Civic engagement in both political and non-political process is necessary for developing knowledge, skills and values to make difference in world. The virtual spaces could be employed for children to express their opinions and in offering