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      A Survey of Health-Related Activities on Second Life

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          Abstract

          Background

          Increasingly, governments, health care agencies, companies, and private groups have chosen Second Life as part of their Web 2.0 communication strategies. Second Life offers unique design features for disseminating health information, training health professionals, and enabling patient education for both academic and commercial health behavior research.

          Objectives

          This study aimed to survey and categorize the range of health-related activities on Second Life; to examine the design attributes of the most innovative and popular sites; and to assess the potential utility of Second Life for the dissemination of health information and for health behavior change.

          Methods

          We used three separate search strategies to identify health-related sites on Second Life. The first used the application’s search engine, entering both generic and select illness-specific keywords, to seek out sites. The second identified sites through a comprehensive review of print, blog, and media sources discussing health activities on Second Life. We then visited each site and used a snowball method to identify other health sites until we reached saturation (no new health sites were identified). The content, user experience, and chief purpose of each site were tabulated as well as basic site information, including user traffic data and site size.

          Results

          We found a wide range of health-related activities on Second Life, and a diverse group of users, including organizations, groups, and individuals. For many users, Second Life activities are a part of their Web 2.0 communication strategy. The most common type of health-related site in our sample (n = 68) were those whose principle aim was patient education or to increase awareness about health issues. The second most common type of site were support sites, followed by training sites, and marketing sites. Finally, a few sites were purpose-built to conduct research in SL or to recruit participants for real-life research.

          Conclusions

          Studies show that behaviors from virtual worlds can translate to the real world. Our survey suggests that users are engaged in a range of health-related activities in Second Life which are potentially impacting real-life behaviors. Further research evaluating the impact of health-related activities on Second Life is warranted.

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          A Virtual Reprise of the Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiments

          Mel Slater, Angus Antley, Adam R Davison … (2006)
          Background Stanley Milgram's 1960s experimental findings that people would administer apparently lethal electric shocks to a stranger at the behest of an authority figure remain critical for understanding obedience. Yet, due to the ethical controversy that his experiments ignited, it is nowadays impossible to carry out direct experimental studies in this area. In the study reported in this paper, we have used a similar paradigm to the one used by Milgram within an immersive virtual environment. Our objective has not been the study of obedience in itself, but of the extent to which participants would respond to such an extreme social situation as if it were real in spite of their knowledge that no real events were taking place. Methodology Following the style of the original experiments, the participants were invited to administer a series of word association memory tests to the (female) virtual human representing the stranger. When she gave an incorrect answer, the participants were instructed to administer an ‘electric shock’ to her, increasing the voltage each time. She responded with increasing discomfort and protests, eventually demanding termination of the experiment. Of the 34 participants, 23 saw and heard the virtual human, and 11 communicated with her only through a text interface. Conclusions Our results show that in spite of the fact that all participants knew for sure that neither the stranger nor the shocks were real, the participants who saw and heard her tended to respond to the situation at the subjective, behavioural and physiological levels as if it were real. This result reopens the door to direct empirical studies of obedience and related extreme social situations, an area of research that is otherwise not open to experimental study for ethical reasons, through the employment of virtual environments.
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            Second Life: an overview of the potential of 3-D virtual worlds in medical and health education.

            Steve Wheeler, Kevin Hetherington, Maged Kamel Boulos (2007)
            This hybrid review-case study introduces three-dimensional (3-D) virtual worlds and their educational potential to medical/health librarians and educators. Second life (http://secondlife.com/) is perhaps the most popular virtual world platform in use today, with an emphasis on social interaction. We describe some medical and health education examples from Second Life, including Second Life Medical and Consumer Health Libraries (Healthinfo Island-funded by a grant from the US National Library of Medicine), and VNEC (Virtual Neurological Education Centre-developed at the University of Plymouth, UK), which we present as two detailed 'case studies'. The pedagogical potentials of Second Life are then discussed, as well as some issues and challenges related to the use of virtual worlds. We have also compiled an up-to-date resource page (http://healthcybermap.org/sl.htm), with additional online material and pointers to support and extend this study.
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              Versatile, Immersive, Creative and Dynamic Virtual 3-D Healthcare Learning Environments: A Review of the Literature

              Margaret M Hansen (2008)
              The author provides a critical overview of three-dimensional (3-D) virtual worlds and “serious gaming” that are currently being developed and used in healthcare professional education and medicine. The relevance of this e-learning innovation for teaching students and professionals is debatable and variables influencing adoption, such as increased knowledge, self-directed learning, and peer collaboration, by academics, healthcare professionals, and business executives are examined while looking at various Web 2.0/3.0 applications. There is a need for more empirical research in order to unearth the pedagogical outcomes and advantages associated with this e-learning technology. A brief description of Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Siemens’ Connectivism Theory for today’s learners is presented as potential underlying pedagogical tenets to support the use of virtual 3-D learning environments in higher education and healthcare.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                :
                Dalla Lana School of Public HealthUniversity of Toronto628 - 155 College StToronto, ON M5T 3M7Canada+1 416 978 4904+1 416 978 1883jenn.keelan@utoronto.ca
                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Med Internet Res
                Journal ID (publisher-id): JMIR
                Title: Journal of Medical Internet Research
                Publisher: Gunther Eysenbach (Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, Toronto, Canada )
                ISSN (Electronic): 1438-8871
                Publication date Collection: Apr-Jun 2009
                Publication date (Electronic): 22 May 2009
                Volume: 11
                Issue: 2
                Electronic Location Identifier: e17
                Affiliations
                [3] 3simpleDalla Lana School of Public Health simpleUniversity of Toronto TorontoONCanada
                [2] 2simpleDepartment of Medicine simpleOttawa Health Research Institute simpleUniversity of Ottawa OttawaONCanada
                [1] 1simpleCentre for Innovation in Complex Care simpleUniversity Hospital Network TorontoONCanada
                Article
                Publisher ID: v11i2e17
                DOI: 10.2196/jmir.1192
                PMC ID: 2762804
                PubMed ID: 19632971
                SO-VID: ff644d52-0821-495f-8a1c-d49bba347cb2
                Copyright © © Leslie Beard, Kumanan Wilson, Dante Morra, Jennifer Keelan. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 22.05.2009.  
                License:

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

                History
                Date received : 06 January 2009
                Date revision requested : 29 January 2009
                Date revision received : 04 March 2009
                Date accepted : 09 March 2009
                Categories
                Subject: Review

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Medicine
                Keywords: user-computer interface,virtual systems,virtual worlds,second life,health education,social and behavioral research,behavioral research,health behavior,health behavior change
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Medicine
                Keywords: user-computer interface, virtual systems, virtual worlds, second life, health education, social and behavioral research, behavioral research, health behavior, health behavior change

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