Addiction, research, health in a virtual world
The usually tabloid Second Life Herald have an interesting but short interview with a Dutch hypnotherapist who conducts therapy in Second Life.
Of course, there’s nothing new about therapy in Second Life – our sister site The Metaverse Journal interviewed two counsellors back in March 2007 – you can read that interview here.
If you run any form of counselling in a virtual world, we’d love to hear from you.
The usually tabloid Second Life Herald have an interesting but short interview with a Dutch hypnotherapist who conducts therapy in Second Life. Of course, there’s nothing new about therapy in Second Life – our sister site The Metaverse Journal interviewed two counsellors back in March 2007 – you can read that interview here. If you [...]
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 [...]
Over at Terra Nova, Robert Bloomfield has written a very interesting post on research methods and virtual worlds. You can read it in full here. The quantitative vs qualitative debate is nothing new in research, but Bloomfield posits that the current momentum toward quantitative research poses some challenges for the other side of the coin.
The past couple of weeks have seen some interesting articles in the mainstream media on virtual environments and health. The first is in the Jerusalem Post, showing the benefits for the vision impaired. You can view the full article here. The second appears in Information Week and covers the use of Second Life by Chicago [...]
An Italian virtual worlds developer, ISN, has announced the roll-out of the Oasis Foundation Virtual World Project. Funded by a non-profit organisation in Italy devoted to assisting the elderly and disabled, the project aims to: 1. Act as communication and collaboration environment to inform, communicate and interact with the public in an innovative way. 2. [...]
I spent some time today reading some fascinating (offline) information about the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic and later on stumbled across an interesting article by Robert Bloomfield on the recent H1N1 (Swine Flu) outbreak. The take home message: If you look at it this way, epidemics provide something of a ‘perfect storm’ for virtual worlds. They [...]
In the past week I received a note from Kerri McCusker (SL: Kerri Macchi) about a project completed for the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds Team, University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. Second Lives sets out to demonstrate a more recent approach to dealing with Crohn’s disease: autologous stem cell transplant. You can view the [...]
As reported on Ars Technica, China are taking some interesting steps to battle MMO addiction. Ignoring the hyperbole around the issue, it poses some interesting discussion points around the role of governance in regards to virtual worlds. In the tightly controlled society of China, compulsory registration is rightly or wrongly more achievable than most other [...]
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 [...]
This post will be of little interest to most people but for the few that may be, here we go. This week I formally commenced my PhD candidature. It’s been a hell of a ride already getting orientated (a half-day series of sessions on the University and its approach to higher degree students). I’ll be [...]
Today I stumbled across this great bunch of photos on the National Geographic site, showing a range of advanced robotics projects underway (some of which I’ve covered here before, including the one pictured). Have a look through them all and you can see some of the superb simulation opportunities these robots will provide. Would love [...]
Via Dusan Writer, here’s an interesting piece on the use of Second Life to train pharmacists in using pharmacy clean rooms. I’ve had the opportunity to use pharmacy clean rooms myself , and I can see how a virtual walk through can be of use before doing the real thing.