About

Metaverse Health is a site devoted to health and virtual worlds. Virtual worlds may provide some of society’s biggest opportunities and greatest challenges in coming years – it’s an area we’re passionate about and that we focus on daily.

David Holloway (SL: Lowell Cremorne) – Founder and Editor

Lowell’s real-world typist is experienced technology writer David Holloway. He has been involved with virtual worlds since heavy use of a MOO in 1993. David holds postgraduate qualifications in health and has completed research on addiction and young men. David consults to business, government and media on virtual worlds (contact David for further information) and has written a chpater on clinical simulation for an a book on virtual worlds and education released in July 2011. David is currently a PhD candidate looking at the efficacy of virtual worlds in improving nursing competence and confidence.

Contact David in Second Life via IM (to Lowell Cremorne), , use our contact form, or drop a line via Facebook, Twitter or FriendFeed.

Stories from the Vault

Chicago Public Health and emergency preparedness

The Chi-Town Daily News has a good article on The University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health recruiting public health workers to participate in emergency preparedness training, in Second Life. Why bother? Here’s why: Emergency preparedness training usually requires closing down facilities and calling people off of work—but conducting emergency drills virtually is [...]

Second Life as demonstration tool for perioperative services

Second used as a demonstrative medium for real-world software: Not the most innovative way to use an immersive environment but I suppose it gets the message across.

Counselling, online therapy and virtual worlds

It’s coming up to a year since we interviewed DeeAnna Nagel and Kate Anthony and discussed counselling in online environments broadly and in virtual environments more specifically. Over that time, the Online Therapy Institute has continued to grow. One example of this is the announcement of a five-hour course on online supervision. Anyone who works [...]

metaverse-paradigms

Virtual Worlds and Metaverse Platforms: New Communication and Identity Paradigms

Just a quick note that the book chapter on virtual worlds, health and simulation I wrote during late 2010 is now available for ordering as part of the book Virtual Worlds and Metaverse Platforms: New Communication and Identity Paradigms Each chapter has an abstract available for viewing and a PDF sample of the first couple [...]

Johnson The Multiplicities of Internet 2a1

Book Review: The Multiplicities of Internet Addiction

Nicola Johnson from the University of Wollongong in Australia, recently released a book titled The Multiplicities of Internet Addiction – The Misrecognition of Leisure and Learning. It’s an engaging read, not least for the very objective look it takes at the concepts of internet addiction and framing the issue within the realities of a net-connected [...]

DREAMS event and Telehealth article

Two snippets I’ve run across this week: 1. An interesting Second Life event: The annual DREAMS Community Health, Education and Art Fair will be held from February the 15th through the 28th. This will be the 5th year for the fair at Dreams. Each year the Dreams Community Fair is provided as an outreach program [...]

Therapy via machinima

Although not directly health-related, I was struck by the power of the machinima below ( thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up). It’s produced by Lainy Voom and you can read more about it here. Have a look for yourself then read on below for some further thoughts: Fall (Mini Project 3) from Lainy Voom [...]

World of Warcraft Addiction: send in the field teams

The UK’s Telegraph newspaper has run a very interesting article on the issue of addiction and World of Warcraft. The key quote for me from the article, from Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Richard Graham: He has called on Blizzard Entertainment, the company that makes World of Warcraft, to waive or discount the costs associated with joining [...]

Introducing: Metaverse Health

I’m really pleased to introduce this sister site to The Metaverse Journal. In the time we’ve been covering virtual worlds, health is one of the key areas that pops up time and time again as both a key opportunity and pivotal challenge. Whether it be the power of thought-control avatars for those with profound physical [...]

Smoking cessation in Second Life

Virtual Ability island continue their regular health-related events. This time, smoking cessation is the focus: Moving toward wellness: Smoking Cessation Tuesday, September 9 8:00 a.m. & 4:00 p.m. SLT Virtual Ability Island This workshop is funded by a grant from the National Library of Medicine, and supported by the Alliance Library System. Nearly 8 years [...]

Science in Second Life: what a list

Thanks to New World Notes, I’ve found out about a great resource for those interested in science and virtual environments. This list has a solid cohort of health-related sites – some I’ve covered previously and some others I’m now keen to investigate further. Obviously Second Life isn’t the only environment where interesting science is going [...]

Health – spread the word!

Delivering health messages to the general public is difficult at the best of times. It’s tough to capture the attention of people when talking about health – unless it’s their area of expertise, most people don’t want to be bothered thinking about their health any more than is strictly necessary. Those who are healthy often [...]