I recently read “Unintended Outcomes in Second Life: Intercultural Literacy and Cultural Identity in a Virtual World” an article in the Language and Intercultural Communication Journal. It was written by William C. Diehl and Esther Prins from the Adult Education Program, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA. The article discusses the online virtual world of Second Life, and how that world can actually create intercultural understanding and help educate people about other cultures and further their language understanding. While I do not doubt that all of these things are true to some extent, I did have trouble trusting the data stated in this article after he stated that his data was collected from 29 people when he recognizes that there are “As of 28 August 2007, over 9.1 million Residents had registered, 1.64 million of whom had logged into SL within the last 60 days.” 29 people are not a large enough sample of people to be statistically significant. He further recognizes that he collected his data from a survey that he advertised for on a virtual billboard.
I think the concept of this paper is interesting. Online forums where intercultural understanding and acceptance are important in our global economy, and education is always something I would encourage. I have never been overly interested in online communities (I like the outdoors way too much to sit in front of a computer for too long), but I certainly can encourage education and cultural understanding. I’ll leave the 18-30 hours a week in a virtual world to other people though. I’d rather attend a language class in person. That being said, I’m going to go for a jog!