Come join a study of the social aspects of SL

Well, I disagree with some of the basic premises of this survey. Most obviously, the implied equivalence of Second Life and WoW, and the identification of the former as a "game" is problematic, as many have already suggested. It seems to me that there is an enormous difference between goal-oriented games, and open virtual sandboxes like SL that are going to skew your data about the appeal of online participation, unless you are COMPARING the differences in results between the two. I for instance find the creative aspects of SL enormously appealing, but have absolutely zilch interest in "games."

It seems to me, too, that you are making assumptions about our use of SL, because you provide no opportunity to elaborate on how we are spending our time in-world. The model here seems to be social networking, but in point of fact a great many people spend their time in-world conducting business, education or, as in my case, using it as a tool for social activism.

In any case, I've finished the survey, and will be interested to see how it turns out.

As a general response to those who resent being "lab rats." We are ALL, to one extent or another, lab rats in RL already. This is what the social sciences are all about, after all: we are all under the scrutiny of anthropologists, ethnologist, psychologists, geographers, marketers, etc., etc., etc. all of the time. The advantage that a survey provides is that it allows us to respond DIRECTLY, as individuals (albeit anonymous ones), and not merely as stats collected and analyzed from some database about internet usage, buying patterns, and so forth.

I agree with Lil that properly-conducted research can be of benefit to SL in fairly direct ways, if it works as a corrective to some of the massively under-researched characterizations of the app that we find in the popular media. More generally (and I know that some will disagree), anything that provides a new perspective on what we "do" is useful, if only as a starting-point for discussion about the nature of our activities and their effect upon our identity.

I except, of course, marketing surveys. Their is a special level in hell set aside for people who conduct those.

One of the areas that I do give Anthony major kudos for is using the term 'player' for WoW and 'resident' for SL. He did at least do enough prior research to know that much about us when he created his survey.

Yes, agreed. And the answers are obviously logged separately if you are responding only about SL, as I've never tried WoW, and the questions were all specifically phrased with regard to SL as a result.