How the CDC Participates in Second Life

Nedra Weinreich has a fascinating post looking at how the Center for Disease Control in the US (a government organization) is participating in Second Life. The CDC is using blogs, podcasts and wikis internally too. I particularly like how they view Second Life as an extension of one's first life. The CDC feels people can merge good health practices in real life with the fun and play of Second Life.

 

Comments

[Million Dollar Link Experiment]

wow, very creative of the CDC. It's sort of weird, sort of cool. I wonder how successful it will end up being.

[John Wall]

Sorry, but I have an issue with tax dollars going towards bleeding edge technologies and virtual crossdressing.

[Rita Desai]

As interesting as this sounds, it is definitely a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. I can't believe that with the health problems that plague the underprivileged that they would choose to allocate their resources into this particular direction, instead of badly needed social marketing campaigns and health education initiatives for those who don't have internet access so they can spend 10 hours on searching for information, or those who haven't likely heard of Second Life.

Any public economics class can tell you that the middle class and upper class (two demographics that statistically have more consistent access to the Internet) tend to proactively seek out health information because they have the know how of where to find it, be it the Internet or the GP. This is just the icing on the cake for them. Meanwhile, other people continue to suffer for lack of quality information because people running the health campaigns don't have any creative ideas in reaching audiences that aren't in the middle or upper classes.

[Churam Vital]

Rita, your points are well-taken; but they might just as well have been made in 1995 in reference to the world wide web.

Agencies and businesses that decided the web was a minor priority were playing catch up until very recently, and looking pretty bad. Not just that: but failing in their educational missions. Remember--not too long ago, it was all about thousands of unread pamphlets. Remember those? Maybe not. Million were (and are) spent on those too. The internet is far more cost-effective. I think Second Life (or something like it) will soon be just another tool like email and the web.

It would be one thing if they were shutting down some real services to afford this, but they aren't.

Also, on the class issue, I have to disagree. When it comes to the stuff the CDC deals with, like pandemic flu and things like that, you will find tremendous ignorance among Americans of all economic classes. Ask an MBA or CPA you know to explain anthrax, pandemic flu, or west nile virus. Odds are you won't find them up to date on these things. Part of the CDC's job is to educate us all. Anyway, people of all classes are in SL.