Feldspar Epstein touched off quite a discussion with her post – Students vs Second Life. The basic premise is that because of the freeform nature of Second Life, Generation Y or millennials (born between 1982 and 2002) are less able to take advantage of Second Life than Generation X (born between 1964 and 1982). Epstein was speaking more from the perspective of an educator trying to reach younger users in virtual worlds but his premise has struck up quite a discussion.
Second, Second Life is an environment in which you need to be able to set goals and tasks for yourself in order to get anything out of it – it is a non-directed playground in which to let the imagination run free. The Millennial Generation has not learned to play this way. They are not used to “making their own fun.” Throughout their schooling they have been given regimented tasks, with pre-determined goals; time outside school is often dominated by a flurry of parentally- determined activities. They are more likely to play games that are directed than to come up with their own games – a Millennial is more likely to play Guitar Hero than to spend time noodling about with a guitar.
Much of this reminds me of the classic generational arguments. MTV will turn us all into short attention span idiots. Pinball will corrupt the youth. Millennials are more likely to play Guitar Hero because most of them would never pick up a guitar anyway. If anything Guitar Hero might get more people to play guitar – Guitar Tutorials Rocket Up iTunes Podcast Charts.
Too much has been made of Generation Y and their inability to enjoy anything outside of a regimented structure. They use to say Gen-Xers would never find employment because of our short attention spans. Either the fears are unfounded or somehow each generation manages to cope.
I like the comparison between Habbo and Second Life Wagner James Au brings up in his follow up post, If SL’s Too Freeform For Gen Y, Why’s Habbo So Huge?
That may be, but I want to pose a counter-point: the virtual world Habbo Hotel is dominated by teens, and with 10 million monthly active users, is about as popular as World of Warcraft– and of course, far more popular than SL. But like Second Life, it’s also a non-game with a freeform structure.
Many Second Life fans have discounted Habbo as it is filled with kids and limited in functionality. True Habbo doesn’t offer the same ability to manipulate the world, however users have still found creative ways to modify their rooms to express themselves. Grass mats are used in all kinds of inventive ways.
I think much of this discounting of other virtual worlds and Generation Y stems from the “immersion vs augmentation” argument. I get the feeling that most hard core Second Life users lean more toward the immersion side of the scale where as Habbo users more to the augmentation side. Could you stretch that to say that Gen-Xers are immersionists and millennials are augmentationist? That would be crazy. Most Gen-Xers don’t even partake in Second Life.
The belief that millennials are incapable of enjoying the freeform of Second Life reminds me of the statements that kids would turn into violent criminals by playing such violent video games as Donkey Kong. Such statements have more to do with the old trying to cope with change and/or keep their institutions relevant. The same motivation is probably behind this.
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