Tag: Community

Editorial: How Second Life and Other Virtual Worlds and Social VR Platforms Can Reduce Isolation During a Potential SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

O.K. it’s time to inject a little levity (thanks, Neobela!):

It’s so funny because it’s true. Second Life users make friends and build communities not based on physical proximity, but on mental and emotional connections between their avatars. That very basic fact, common to all virtual worlds and social VR platforms, may be a life-saver to those people who, either by choice or by circumstance, are forced to self-isolate in their homes because of quarantines and the imposition of social distancing policies by their governments.

And it’s not just Second Life. It’s any virtual world, and the concept applies to the newer social VR platforms like Sansar, too.

I am one of those depressed people who often walks away from a real-world interaction with a friend or acquaintance with an uplift in my mood. And I know that I often can replicate that response, when I interact with other people in a virtual world, too. My brain literally does not know the difference between a real-world interaction and a virtual-world one, and it responds the same way.

Of course, this works both ways: someone in my real life or or in virtual one can just as easily bring me down and depress me further. But the fact remains that social VR platforms and virtual worlds are built on the foundation of human communication. It literally doesn’t matter if those humans are living right next door or at the other end of the globe in our modern era of information technology. We can find our own community, people who share our thoughts, goals, and dreams, and literally build new worlds!

So, while the SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 outbreak continues, don’t forget to sign into your favourite social VR/virtual world platform(s) from time to time, to reconnect with your communities.

Sansar Already Has a Strong Sense of Community

My father, Hugo Schultz, was a machinist for the Canadian National Railway, and I grew up in the eastern Winnipeg neighbourhood of Transcona, home to the CNR Transcona Shops where he worked almost all his life. At the time of Transcona’s Centennial, CBC Manitoba reported:

Transcona was founded as the site of the repair shops for the Grand Trunk Pacific and National Transcontinental Railways. The name “Transcona” is an amalgam of Transcontinental and Strathcona, the latter from Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona, a former Manitoban who was instrumental in building Canada’s first railway. It was Lord Strathcona who drove the last spike into the CPR railway in 1885.

The CNR Transcona Shops opened in 1913, and during the First World War, the shops were used for the manufacture of munitions.

Transcona attained city status in 1961, and in 1972, it amalgamated with the City of Winnipeg, along with 11 other communities.

On the block where I grew up, there was a very strong sense of community. All the neighbours knew each other. Every summer the block got a permit from the City, and threw a weekend block party. Our house was in the middle of the block, so during the block party, people tended to bring over their lawn chairs and congregate there. We even had an annual North Side versus South Side volleyball game!

This all seemed so normal that it wasn’t until I grew up and moved away that I realized that this sense of community was not the norm. Many people nowadays feel isolated, even in the midst of bustling neighbourhoods.

114 Harvest 1 July 2018.png

The reason I am telling you all this is that today, for the first time in a long while, I had an opportunity to explore the 114 Harvest experience. Drax recently gave the houses lining Harvest Street to other Sansar residents to use, and people have lovingly decorated their virtual homes.

Here’s a glimpse inside Strawberry Singh’s tastefully decorated home:

114 Harvest 2 1 July 2018.png

(Note that in Sansar, just as in Second Life, it’s quite acceptable to explore other people’s houses when they are not there! In SL, sometimes people set up security orbs to turf trespassers, but most people don’t bother.)

And while I was exploring it struck me that, even though Sansar has been open to the public for less than a year, it already has an amazingly strong community. It may not be a very large community (yet), but it is robust, wildly creative and quite active.

114 Harvest 3 1 July 2018.png

A virtual world is not a success based on what features and tools it can offer; it is a success based on its sense of community, of belonging. This is what keeps people coming back again and again, to meet friends old and new and build something wonderful together. This is the secret to the success of Second Life, still going strong after 15 years.

Given its small but strong community, Sansar can already be seen as a success at this early stage in its development.