Safe Travels in Second Life
There are many, many places in Second Life where you can find almost anything. You'll see the mundane, the marvelous, and the inspirational, but you can also find edgy, even disturbing things. Similarly, you can walk down a Real Life city street and find must-see architecture or destinations and then encounter less pleasant things in the same neighborhood.
The main things to remember are:
- Your avatar cannot be harmed. Your avatar cannot die or be disfigured. If you read about avatars "dying" as part of a roleplay situation, "dying" means that that avatar has been teleported to their home location, or possibly was logged out of SL. If the avatar was logged out, coming back is as simple as logging in again.
- YOU cannot be harmed as long as you follow the same common-sense guidelines that you would follow in any online environment. Give personal information only to people you trust. Never share your password with anyone (Linden Lab will never ask you for your password).
- If you are somewhere you don't like, for whatever reason, you can leave. Just teleport away, using a landmark in your inventory, or TPing home, or even choosing a random spot on the Map. (see also Finding Places to Go)
- Your avatar cannot do anything without your permission. If you find that your avatar seems to be performing animations that you did not control, click the Stand Up button (if you see it, you are "sitting" on something that may be animating your avatar), or detach objects that may be animating you.
To look for objects to detach:- Open your Inventory (the Suitcase icon in the right sidebar)
- Open the Current Outfit folder
- Look through the list for something you don't recognize or don't know what it does
- Right-click the item in the list and choose "Detach From Yourself" from the menu
- Be aware of objects you accept from people. When you accept them, they are in your inventory, and they cannot act on you when they're in your inventory. However, it helps to know what you're getting from someone. In general, I'd advise not accepting objects from strangers, or if you do accept something from a stranger (say, to avoid the question "Why didn't you accept?"), delete it from your inventory.
- If you find yourself surrounded by an object, move your camera outside the object (see Your Environment: Moving & Looking) until you can see another object or the ground outside the object, and then right-click the object or the ground and choose "Sit". Devices exist that can push your avatar around. But, if you are sitting on an object or the ground, those devices cannot affect you.
Second Life, on one hand, is only pixels. On the other hand, the experiences we have in Second Life can affect us. We bring our minds and imaginations to Second Life, and those are the things that our Real Life reactions derive from.
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Jan 16, 2013 Workshop: "Meaningful Use" more info
NBC 5 TV - "Learning in a Virtual World"
UTACON in SL grant and research activities
