New media has made possible many new things, but most of all it has fueled creativity. Whether it be through blogs, social networking sites or virtual worlds the limits of what can be created is only limited by the individual. I was very interested in exploring virtual worlds, so I set out to create an avatar in Second Life. In my opinion virtual worlds such as this one put a vast amount of possibilities at one's fingertips. Thus, it was left up to me what I chose to do with it and how to exploit it. As a result, I decided to go over the top and be creative when choosing my avatar. Interestingly Second Life lets you chose from animals, vampires, robots, and people for the avatar. I decided to chose from the vampire group because where else can one have this opportunity? Moreover, Second Life lets one's imagination go rampant by permitting one to customize a home- which can be located anywhere we want it to be. In addition to this, avatars can fly and teleport to interesting locations around the world. Everything is accessible with the click of a button, in just a few seconds one can be in Brazil in a virtual world modeled with incredible detail to the actual location.
In a similar fashion, an avatar can be personalized or changed at one's whim! In addition to all this, an I was ble to chat with other people via their avatars. I found Second life to be a summation of what new media technologies can do: they have decreased communication barriers and increased the depth, richness and reach of information. Second Life is but one example of how via our avatars we can travel to distant places, meet and "talk"to people around the world. Thanks to new media like this one I can virtually travel to a environmentally rich location and feel as if I were actually there.
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