Layers of chat

One interesting observation from the project thus far is how many layers of chat communication are deployed by young people who use Second Life. There are at least three:

• the in-world public chat, which only works when one virtual character is in the vicinity of another, and can be seen by others in the world. Our observation is that this chat is used as a form of introduction, to break the ice with another character, and once a connection is made the conversation moves to a more private forum. What is interesting is that this seems to parallel behaviour in other environments, such as the making of connections in web forums that then move to Instant Messaging platforms for further conversation
• the in-world private Instant Chat, which does not depend on vicinity of the avatars to work, and cannot be seen by others. This is used to continue private conversation by two avatars who know one another
• external chat services such as MSN Instant Messenger. We are finding in the classes we run in Second Life that young people sometimes tend to defer to these services, even when used with other people who are also in Second Life with Second Life chat is available. We speculate that this may be because external Instant Messaging is ubiquitous and frequently used by young people, so it’s a familiar and established form of communication, with contacts and communication channels already set up. It also reduces the need to ’switch hats’ and duplicate communication environments - all contact can be conducted via the IM panel, whether with in-world friends or those outside the SL environment