I'm excited to read Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human by Tom Boellstorff, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California at Irvine, perhaps better known as his SL avatar Tom Bukowski.One mode of thought has it that humans stopped evolving once they began to manipulate their environment to make their lives easier; there's nothing like the threat of extinction to force evolution. However, while our physical evolution might have slowed or even halted, our social evolution continues, as witness the rise of the online social networking phenomenon exemplified by MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and of course SL.
If I hadn't been such a poor student, I'd have gone into anthropology myself, so I'm eager to read Mr. Boellstorff's upcoming book, in which he relates his experiences being in-world for over two and a half years.
(Via chronicle.com)
1. Aww Akela, thanks for the kind words! Rl books, sadly, take a *long* time to produce, so the book isn't slated to appear until April, though Princeton University Press is going to try and get it out a month or two earlier. But you can come to the Cetus Gallery District on Tuesday, Aug 21, at 6:30pm for an event (with live music and a DJ) to announce the winner of the contest I've held to pick a resident snapshot to be incorporated into the book's cover. Thanks again!
Posted at 2:17AM on Aug 15th 2007 by Tom Boellstorff