Howard Rheingold’s article “Multi-User Dungeons and Alternate Identities” gives the pros and cons of the world of MUDs. Prior to reading this article, I had heard of a couple MUDs but really had no understanding to what they were about. An increasingly active example of a MUD is Second Life which I first heard mentioned on my favorite television show, The Office. Another example that I had heard of is World of Warcraft (WOW) which is more like a video game where monsters need to be killed, etc. I had a couple of guy friends that were pretty into WOW but I myself never played it. No I was never into virtual communities such as the ones I mentioned above. But I thought, why don’t I give it a try just to see what it’s like? I picked LambdaMOO, the text-based virtual community Rheingold mentioned in the article. After having a little trouble getting started, I found myself in the Coat Closet. My experience was pretty fun. I didn’t talk to too many people and I found myself a little overwhelmed with all the commands. But it was still a nice break from reality.
However, as I was on LambdaMOO, I didn’t realize how much time I was spending there. I had been on for half an hour when it seemed like I had been on for five minutes. I remembered reading in the article about how addictive MUDs can be and I completely agree. Some people even go on for 70 hours a week! That’s unimaginable to me. Rheingold says “When you are putting in seventy or eighty hours a week on your fantasy character, you don’t have much time left for a healthy social life” (156). I completely agree with him. MUDs are definitely addictive and I think that is a huge point he is making in the article. It is destructive to your social life to be spending so much time on MUDs but I believe it is also destructive to other areas of your life such as school and work. Rheingold says the largest category of MUDers is college age students meaning that a lot of them are probably slacking on their school work to play these games. I completely understand how addictive it can be but I also think that it’s a little ridiculous to spend so much time on something that is not even real. Personally, I prefer real life a whole lot more than a virtual one!
1 comment:
Amy.. You have good points in your blog. I completely agree that hours go by without even noticing your engaged in doing something. I also agree that it effects ones social life because I feel like people would rely too much on communicating through the internet then when it came time for face to face communication it would almost be awkward. I think one looses touch with themselves and looses insight with reality.
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