Metaverse Health

Archive for November, 2008

Machinima guru Draxtor Depres has created an excellent piece on the entry of a new health non–profit into Second Life.

In Draxtor’s words:

Faster Cures is a self-described action tank, focused on changing the culture of medical research. They recently entered Second Life, planning to use its potential to the fullest. Draxtor Despres found out what the future holds for patient-doctor relationships and so much more….

Thanks to Caleb Booker for the heads-up

In the past week, the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research released its second issue, and one article that caught my eye from a health viewpoint is a research paper titled:

Ugly Duckling by Day, Super Model by Night: The Influence of Body Image on the Use of Virtual Worlds

The intent of the study was to determine the relationship of body image perception and the decision to use virtual worlds. 252 individuals were surveyed on some key measures: telepresence, physical attractiveness, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms. The inidividual variables alone make for interesting reading, particularly telepresence, but the interrelationship is the focus of the research. The results? In a nutshell:

The results indicate that telepresence attitude, subjective norms, and the desire to become someone else are directly related to the use of virtual worlds and the influence of body image on the use of virtual worlds is mediated by the desire to become someone else

What this means is that the primary driver for people using virtual worlds is the ability to feel close to others and to be able to transmit emotions. The issue of becoming someone else and body image were found to be only the third biggest influence.

The authors make the firm point of what may determine success for business or individuals in virtual worlds:

These results highlight the relational aspect of virtual worlds which suggest that if individuals and firms want to be successful in virtual worlds, they should concentrate on providing relational experiences.

Who would have thought – people want to socialise with other people.

Linden Lab have provided an update on their recent clamp down on mainland advertising in Second Life.

Now that we’re seeing less advertising, is it time for some social behaviour change? Would it hurt to have some positive health messages advertised around the grid? I’d love to hear your thought – what messages would you like to promote if widespread non-profit advertising were allowed?

This article in the Canadian publication, the London Free Press, describes in detail a couple of case studies of gaming addicts. The case studies themselves paint a fairly standard picture of someone with a compulsion for intensive gaming, though some effort has been made to provide balanced coverage of the issue.

The premise of the article is the establishment of a support service for gaming addicts in London, Ontario – apparently the first such group in Canada. What caught my eye was that the wife of one of the addicts described in the article, Wendy Kays, has written a book called Game Widow. (we’ll hopefully be reviewing the book soon).

The term ‘game widow’ has been around for years and it’s increasingly resonating with the broader public. It further emphasises the need for more research in the area as well as a vigilance toward not typecasting all gamers as addicts. Terms like ‘game widow’ also accentuate the gender divide in some gaming genres. There are surely ‘game widowers’ out there but they’re likely to be in a distinct minority.

One final comment to the author of the article – online roleplaying did not begin with Everquest in 1999.

There’s another new health project in development in Second Life – Karuna. It’s The focus is ‘HIV / AIDS education, outreach and support’ and it’s scheduled for launch on December 1st, World AIDS Day.

Partners in the project include AIDS.gov and the University of North Carolina Center for AIDS research, Community Outreach, Dissemination, and Education Office (CFAR). A centrepiece of the initiative will be a Garden of Experience where those dealing with HIV/ AIDS will share their experiences via photos, video, music and poetry.

The agenda for the 1st December (in PST / SL time) is:

Complacency is one of the key challenges with HIV / AIDS education, particularly in the developed world. Projects like this will hopefully garner some significant mainstream media interest and heighten the awareness of the issue amongst ‘at-risk’ populations – which is pretty much the whole population.

Find out more about Karuna here and we’ll post a SLURL when it’s available. Thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up.