Metaverse Health
Addiction, research, health in a virtual world
Stories from the Vault
Interview – DeeAnna Nagel and Kate Anthony, Psychotherapists
DeeAnna Nagel and Kate Anthony are psychotherapists and founders of the Online Therapy Institute. The pair have only recently expanded their work to Second Life, but they have extensive experience in working with people therapeutically online. The pair now have a presence on Jokaydia in Second Life. I caught up with them to talk online [...]
Pedagogy and Virtual Worlds: Journal of Virtual Worlds Research
The latest issue of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research has been released, and as usual it’s full of peer-reviewed research papers, plus some discussion pieces and other features. Pedagogy is a key consideration for any educator, and this issue goes some way to establishing a pedagological framework for virtual worlds. Major kudos to the [...]
Health Beyond 2009 – e-health, Serious Games and Second Life
As a Registered Nurse with a passion for the use of emerging technologies to improve health, it can sometimes be a little frustrating when things don’t seem to progress as fast as one would like. There’s also the ‘they just don’t get it’ phenomenon amongst some in health leadership and management roles, which can lead [...]
USA healthcare reform: Obama and Second Life
Over the past few days, there’s been quite a bit of buzz around the latest piece created by the talented Draxtor Despres. It reports on discussions held on US Healthcare reform in Second Life that will be looked at by the incoming Obama administration as part of much wider community consultations going on at present. [...]
Quantitative vs Qualitative research methods in virtual worlds
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.
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 [...]
The Psychology of Immersive Environments – working group in Second Life
A new working group looking at the psychology of immersive environments is about to launch in Second Life. The inaugural get-together is occurring Wednesday July 15th at 4pm SL time. Click here for the exact location. Thanks to Dusan Writer for the heads up.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health features Second Life
The ever-growing number of health-related projects occurring in virtual worlds continues to seep through to the academic literature. On the 18th December, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published an article titled Web 3D for Public, Environmental and Occupational Health: Early Examples from Second Life. The abstract: Over the past three years [...]
Virtual worlds: public health opportunities
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 [...]
Linden Lab mainland advertising ban kicks in
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 [...]
Second Lives Clinic: demonstrating autologous stem cell transplant in Crohn’s disease
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 [...]
Interview: Andrew Campbell – Director of Prometheus Research Team, University of Sydney
Over the past couple of years I’ve had the opportunity to chat with Andrew Campbell on a couple of occasions. As Director of the Prometheus Research Team, Andrew is heavily involved in the area of mental health and technology. I’ve always been struck by Andrew’s objective view of gaming and virtual worlds, which he rightly [...]