[staff reflections] On Beyond Second Life
Two years ago, in January of 2006, Global Kids opened our first Island in Second Life, on the main grid. We had a party then sent it the next day to the teen grid. The party was a blast, as captured below in our first machinima (before we even learned the word!).
At the time, we could not have imagined that within two years Second Life’s accounts would grow from around 20,000 to over ten million, that Global Kids online staff would grow from three to twelve (not counting interns and independent contractors), nor that this new medium would explode in 2008 and be predicted to reach more than 50% of teens by 2011.
Reflecting back on the past two years, rather than reflect on the broad range of our past SL-based educational programs, the remarkable partners (from UNICEF to the MacArthur Foundation to the dozen amazing organizations I am leaving out), and the impact we have had on youth both in NYC and around the world, I’d rather look at the next few years.
Can we say virtual worlds have tipped? Sure, last October saw three Second Life-based prime time TV episodes (CSI, Law & Order, and the Office), and what parent hasn’t heard of Webkinz? But few parents I speak to have an understanding of “virtual worlds” as a framework to conceptualize these experiences. More often they are described as either games or web sites (as highlighted in my trip video from last Novemeber). Virtual worlds will tip when adults think of them as a distinct genre and can identity a number of examples (e.g. Yahoo and Google are search engines, MySpace and Facebook are social networks, etc.).
It seems clear with the scores of new worlds expected to emerge this year, many if not most serving as little more than sophisticated advertising or brand loyalty efforts targeting tweens, the “dangers” of virtual words will increasingly capture the imagination of journalists (or lack there of) and introduce them to a wider audience. We can expect to go through the same cycles of outrage that accompanied the waltz, pulp fiction novels, comic books, rap music, video games, etc.
First the outrage, than the more balanced debates, then broad acceptance into the culture as we move on to the next new medium corrupting our youth. In the meantime this cycle, of course, will largely obscure what is actually going on in regards to the positive and negative impacts of virtual worlds on youth and learning.
Luckily, cutting through all this, we have the Macarthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative (full disclosure: our main supporters) and their funding of researchers who are working to inject data into the discourse while organizations like Global Kids and our partners offer concrete examples of the educational and philanthropic potential of this medium.
In this context, Global Kids has the opportunity, if not the obligation, to continue our work in Teen Second Life but also expand to other virtual worlds. Whyville. There.com. Habbo Hotel. Active Worlds. We have been speaking with There.com for months and have plans underway to enter Whyville within the season. What will it mean for Global Kids as we take our work from one to a multiple of teen virtual worlds? Will we learn that there are unique affordances that unify all virtual worlds or rather than each space has its own educational opportunities? And what will happen when we begin to explore the interoperability of using the web to connecting virtual worlds to cellphones, and to one another?
This month the Forward ran an article on virtual worlds, stating “All the research about gaming is driven either by the industry or by people who want to prove it’s bad." I hope a year from now a journalist couldn’t make such a statement, referring to virtual worlds as a game, nor ignore the strong research already available, without readers dismissing him or her as uninformed.
In the meantime, while virtual worlds tip, outrage blooms, and data is mined, the kids play on.
