Social Networks and Gaming

This week’s topic is one that I have little interest or experience with; social networks and games. I do think that these will eventually have their place in education. We are already using Facebook at my school to get messages out to students and have a page for each extra curricular club. I am just not sure how these applications fit into my life and why I need to be online socially interacting with  everyone…
My experience with World Of Warcraft has primarily been telling students to stop playing it on school time with the library computers. It doesn’t seem all that interesting to me but then again I was never a big fan of Zelda or any other ongoing games either. I revisited the site this week and it looks very complicated plus I don’t think I realized that you had to pay to play. I have heard some interesting stories of people meeting in the game and then dating in real life. I also watched a Dateline special about adults who were so addicted they did not do anything else with their days and nights other than play. I know my brother is into X-box live which seems similar and my parents are always complaining about the charges on their credit cards. I can see how these virtual worlds could be used in education to create an online virtual school with different classes or assignments that the students need to master in order to move on but I just am not sold on the whole gaming realm that it is in now. I also think there are a lot of issues with content that need to be resolved...kindof like the real world soo maybe I will just have to let that one go...
I also checked out Second Life, which I read and hear about often. I have been invited to meetings in Second Life but have never actually been there. I learned that a Slurl is a map link in Second Life. I looked at the quick start guide, which is 7 pages long… It seems easy enough to get started and then there are keyboard shortcuts you can use and…I guess it is still not enough to get me to login and create my second life. Do I really need one?
I have been on Myspace to look up different people when it was popular but have had almost no experience with Facebook. It just doesn’t interest me and seems like a big waste of my time. All of my students, friends and neighbors have accounts and are constantly on it. I signed up for the first time for this assignment and am stll unsure of what I will do with it. Maybe I am too private? But I don’t really want to upload photos to share with anyone. It did come up with some people that I should befriend, like classmates from high school and some people that I know in “real” life from my address book. The high school classmates were interesting to see but I don’t really feel the need to reconnect with someone that I haven’t spoken to in 15 years. I found my mother and requested to be her friend but I email and talk to her anyways so I am not sure if I need to “know “ her on Facebook as well. I guess the whole experience has left me wondering what is wrong with me that all these people just love and are a little addicted to Facebook and I really don’t think I need it in my life? Hmm maybe I am just showing what a digital immigrant I am?