The digital wilderness

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Filed under: Culture, Opinion, Second Life, Virtual worlds

It's considered to be a vast expanse of digital territory whose growth far outpaces the number of people actually using it. Huge tracts of it are completely abandoned wastelands, failed venues and disused stores. Parts of it are struggling venues trying to attract visitors. A few places are consistently busy, but they also bring the risk of abusive and disruptive people, who get their jollies from messing things up for others.

Advertising -- often quite intrusive -- is everywhere. At any moment you could be confronted by imagery of penises or of distasteful sexual practices. Committed users are freaks, and successful ones are geeks and enough people tend to choose anonymity that you're never really sure who you're talking to.

Sure there's businesses using it, commerce being done, and plenty of educational institutions who can no longer live without it, but that all seems just a small part of it compared to the time-wasting, boring, and sexual aspects doesn't it?

You all know the place we're talking about, right?

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The digital wilderness originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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