Coming of Age in Second Life (Or, One Reason Teen SL Hasn't Grown)
Teen Second Life blogger Arwyn Quandry mentioned this post of hers, "Coming of Age in Second Life", as a personal favorite, and she's right to do so. She writes how she discovered SL (with some gratifying props to me), but because she's under 18, found herself in the teen grid, where she developed her creation skills, expanded her perspective for what's possible... and then promptly began pining for "the Main Grid", i.e. Second Life proper:
I read the Main Grid fashion and news blogs constantly, loving them and wanting to be able to access that kind of content. For a little while, I even thought of making a Main Grid account (but never did).
This strikes me as an unintended consequence to having two versions of Second Life divided by age, and a significant reason why TSL has not grown (it only has several thousand active users.) As they mature in talent and ambition, the best and brightest teens in TSL don't necessarily become community leaders there, but instead, start yearning to leave for the Main Grid. (And are forced to do so once they turn 18.) So Teen Second Life remains stagnant, a de facto waiting room for the real thing. In that regard, Arwyn is also anxious about making the transfer: "I worry that I’ll lose my place and just kind of disappear in the crowd, that I won’t have anything to blog about," she writes. But there I disagree; I think someone with her skills will be welcomed into SL by many, and she'll soon find herself overwhelmed by topics to talk about. Image from Ms. Quandry's Flickr stream.







