News Regarding the Center
Virtual reality check: CYBER JUNGLE: From treatment to education, Second Life holds great promise
Ottawa Sun, Canada
March 26, 2007
James Katz, a communications professor at Rutgers University and author of several books on Internet and society, addressed the Second Life phenomenon this past weekend as the keynote speaker for the Mobile Nation conference in Toronto.
In a survey of 1,400 Americans this month, he found 10% of those who go on the Internet feel they're part of an online community. There, they tend to find interests that aren't well-represented in their own neighbourhoods, as well as like-minded souls, busting the perception of "an isolated, lonely person desperately trying to make meaning out of life."
"While certainly there probably are such people," says Katz, "it seems clear that many others, and in this case 10%, roughly, find themselves to be part of a community where they have potentially, actually meaningful relationships."
Second Life is also another form of fantasy, says Katz, which is something all of us tend to enjoy in different forms, whether that means going to Disneyworld, re-enacting American Revolution battles or investing in Mont Tremblant's faux-European village.
"In other words, people love reconfiguring their environments, and playing with it and being immersed in it."
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