The Second Life class has come and gone. After the class I got to thinking about low tech alternatives to a chat room as elaborate as second life. The first old timey technology that came to my mind was the telephone and all the glory that was the party line. A party line can be seen as an early chat room, anyone could log on (pick up the receiver) and engage in conversation. The technology continues today, with a slightly more capital purpose. Way back before smart phones, limited access systems electrical talking machines were all the rage. These telephone machines are clearly older technology. In those photos you will see buttons, switches, knobs, wires, and even what appear to be a type of display using cathode ray tube technology. Today we have a fancy interface for chat rooms and communications in general, but are we really do anything new?
(Will Drakes post regarding "The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future" on facebook inspired this post)
Sources in order of use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n92a6LOkSaU&feature=related
http://secondlife.com/
http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/telephone.htm
http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2010/01/early_telephone_operator_recal.html
http://blog.sfgate.com/thebigevent/2012/02/02/long-distance-fifty-years-of-telephones-in-san-francisco/#2821-14
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-jig-is-up-time-to-get-past-facebook-and-
invent-a-new-future/256046/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/330720543616565/
I thinks its great that your looking at past technologies, and you certainly conclude with an interesting question. I would have to answer with an enthusiastic no! Sure applications like Second Life may look new and futuristic at first glance, but the reality is that they are nothing more than the latest incarnation of basic social practices that have been a common feature of human society since the dawn of civilization. At its core, Second Life is a new way for people to gather in a group and talk to one another. Before that, AOL chat rooms served this purpose; before that, the party line; Long before that it was gathering in the town tavern after a long day of working the fields to catch up on local gossip. What distinguishes Second Life and other virtual applications is their ability to enable you to "travel" farther from home. Before our class meeting I had a brief conversation with some people from China, which would be unprecedented as little as 30 years ago.
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