Second Life = Deviant Life? Have YOUR say

1. Some people suggest that Second Life encourages deviant activities. Do you feel your behaviour is less inhibited in Second Life than the physical world?

This has 2 different objects for discussion: Deviance and Inhibition. Why mention deviance if you want to know about inhibition?

And please don't say again that it is not for you to decide what deviant behavior is or is not. As a researcher you must have definitions otherwise there is no way to objectively evaluate responses.


2. Some people suggest that Second Life mirrors the physical world. Is your experience of Second Life remote from, or close to, the physical world in which you reside?

Who are these "some people" who have not a clue as to the nature of virtual worlds? They should be studied as fine examples of aberrant behavior or at least ignored and then find "some people" who have foundational knowledge of the subject at hand.


3. There is 3D avatar creation technology in Second Life, do you want an avatar that closely resembles you, or realises some new desired image?

Why is that first phrase even necessary? This sounds like a question pulled from a survey given to undergrads who have never logged into a virtual world.

4. In the communities of Second Life, there are various norms and rules, how do they shape your views about deviant activities?

There are no deviant behaviors in SL.

if everyone is doing it, it's not really deviant behaviour, is it?

Humans are sexual animals. Get used to it.

Sex is not the answer... sex is the question and yes is the answer.

Now *this* is what I call deviant behaviour!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lincolnshire/7923718.stm

Pep (the question is, who were the deviants?)

Sex *is* the answer!

Pep (If you are a New Zealander and the question is "What's two times three?"

That's the punchline of one of my favourite jokes!

Pep (Not appropriate for a PG forum of course )

Sex has always been the answer for me!

(Usually in response to the question, "What do I get out of it?"

Catching up on the latest posts here . . .


3D avatars? Rubbish. Not until you can provide a cheap holographic display. Everybody is *not* talking about them, not outside MIT anyway. Your definition of 'avatar' is a long way away from that used inworld. The impression that people have of the personality expressed by "Pep" in the forums (very different from those who have met "him" inworld) is not of the "person" who types the posts. I suppose you believe that Anthony Hopkins is a cannibal, that CSI is a documentary and Treasure Island is a travelogue. To summarise, no, that does *not* constitute an avatar for participants in SL nor the SL Forums.


This is not ironic. I suggest you look up the correct meaning in a good dictionary.


Exactly who describes SL as an "inherent old bed"? (Is Jig available to translate this nonsensical phrase perhaps?)


We shouldn't need to tell you what is allowed and what is not. Why don't you read the ToS for SL and the Guidelines for the Forums, where such things are explicitly defined. You might even find the section which explains why you are breaking the rules (but not the norms) by posting a survey here.


To distinguish: an "academic" is someone employed by an academic institution for the purposes of advancing learning (You may qualify, but I am increasingly leaning towards the belief that you have not been entirely honest in your representations in this respect) whereas an "intellectual" is someone who can understand and present cogent and coherent arguments in respect of non-trivial issues. You *certainly* don't qualify for *this* description based on your performance thus far.

I was in college with one of the "Academic Staff" listed on the Swansea University Computer Science webpages, conveniently with their phone numbers shown. I think I shall give him a call and find out what he knows about this cross-faculty initiative.

Pep (and if the page you quote above disappears we'll just have to guess what has happened, won't we)

Ted Bundy started out as a peeping tom. This poster sets off all kinds of red flags and sirens for me.

Well, guess what happened . . .

Pep (http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/SecondLifeResearch/ - ERROR 404 Object not found!)

Darn, a whole thread about deviance and I am not there.

Now I would not have answered the questions anyway, since I do not participate in deviance much, in SL that is. Though f*cking one or more alts in order to align the animations for a new bed looks deviant enough.

So what did I see in this thread? Clamps: check. Electricity: no, I sold my violet wand. Toothbrush: check. Not much deviance after all, in my opinion...

*giggle* So much for "I'm a real live researcher with a real live university"!

This thread's definitely been more fun than the average boring survey thread.

don't forget perving around watching people.

It seems ironic to me.

I consider it unfortunate that the use of "ironic" to mean a milder form of "sarcastic" has overshadowed its deeper literary meaning. Dictionary.com has a nice short discussion of the differences between irony, satire and sarcasm under its definition of irony.

No.

What is ironic is that this "researcher" into deviance used deviant behaviour (lurking around watching people get their jollies) as a research method.

While I agree whole-heartedly with the latter sentiments, I don't think the OP's words expressed irony, merely a textual "grimace" in response to an unfortunate (in retrospect) decision on his part. Water under the bridge now though, it appears . . .

Pep (It is VERY difficult to express irony/sarcasm in text successfully )

I never said she had big teeth!

Ah, but is it OK if he just observed stuff that was going on in public, but deviant if he cammed in to private places?

Pep (Damn, now *I* am doing his research for him!)

Well, it depends whether we are defining deviance as behaviour which shouldn't be allowed or as behaviour which deviates from the norm (whatever that is). Some people like to watch and some like to be watched. Some people class that as deviant behaviour even when all parties knowingly consent. Public sex places seem to be very popular in SL and I suppose doing things there is tacit agreement to be watched. In these situations I think it's more a question of manners than anything else. If he'd gone up to people and said "hi, mind if I watch?" he'd probably have found plenty of takers.

Camming into private places is not nice under any circumstances and probably most of us wish there was a way to prevent it.

*pouts*

I'm 18 pages late to this thread.

*kicks a pebble and wanders off*

Do you know what this argument (in the nicest possible enlightening way) is bringing home to me? That the critical (moral?) criterion in SL is not a matter of deviance, but of politeness.

Pep (always asks first - and even listens to the answer sometimes)

Check!

If you ask vague questions you get vague answers.

"Deviant" is a gutless word. To be coy and say, "What do *you* think it is?" is cowardly.

It takes ZERO effort to clarify what you mean. You could say, "For the purpose of discussion, deviance will be defined as..." and perhaps you could shunt off objections to the definition to a separate thread.

If you don't particularly care what "deviant" means, or want to let it be a floaty "whatever-you-want-it-to-be" word, then how will you know whether you've found out anything at all?

If your question is: "What do you consider to be deviant behavior?" then *that* is the question to ask.

If your question is: "Do you do things in SL that you would be ashamed to do in real life?" then *that* is the question you should ask.

Really, if you chucked the word "deviant" entirely, you might get somewhere. It's a sloppy word, and can be emotionally overcharged.

As an example of what I'm talking about -- and I hate having to spell it out with this example -- but I live (in real life) in a predominantly gay neighborhood. My husband and I have sometimes been in the sexual minority at parties and restaurants -- I mean, the only heterosexuals in the room.

Now, if you were to come to one of those parties and tell everyone that you're a researcher and that you want to know about "deviance" in my neighborhood, how do you think you'd be received?

The first thing that would happen, I'm pretty sure, is that someone would say, "What do you mean by deviance?"

And if you batted your eyes and coyly replied, "What do YOU mean by deviance?" I think you would be lucky that people are quite civilized here...

It would do no good to say, "Hey, I don't think you're deviant! I want to give you the chance to explain that you're NOT!" How could that possibly be well received?

Because if you were (again, for example) trying to get someone to say that they considered homosexuality to be deviant (and this is why I hate giving this as an example), then you are doing no one any good, and you will have learned exactly nothing.

You can't object that *that* (trying to get someone to own up to a definition of "deviance" is not what you're doing since you don't supply a definition yourself.



did you mean "hotbed"?

Yup. Being a resident and someone that talks on the forums sometimes DOES help.

I fear I started a survey chain. Some of you made an exception and now, look what happened!!! Sorry guys....

I think I was helpful. I did make jokes, but I made some serious comments. I am glad that the questioner stayed and fought.

We are not mean. We are bombarded with surveys, though, and if we demand quality, it is our right.