SECONDLIFE MAKES US SMARTER

There’s often talk of the learning curve being a negative aspect of Secondlife.

When in actual fact the perceived learning curve can be seen as a good thing and should be embraced. Saying Secondlife is difficult is like saying Life is difficult. Just like real life … Secondlife is a challenge. It’s a healthy challenge and no more complex than any current 3D game or MMO.

“In order to keep your brain making new connections and keeping them active, you need to keep moving on to another challenging activity as soon as you reach the point of mastery in the one you are engaging in. You want to be in a constant state of slight discomfort, struggling to barely achieve whatever it is you are trying to do,”

Above quote from Andrea Kurzewski’s Blog about Fluid intelligence
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/03/07/you-can-increase-your-intelligence-5-ways-to-maximize-your-cognitive-potential/


"You want to be in a constant state of slight discomfort, struggling to barely achieve whatever it is you are trying to do"   That sounds like Secondlife to me  :-)   I say that with affection and humour. I do love Secondlife.

Secondlife presents us with never ending opportunities to keep growing as human beings. It’s a true multimodal environment involving networking, creativity, problem solving, collaborative work and social play. Exactly the things we need as adults to stop us becoming fossils of our own younger, vibrant selves.

The Flynn effect, which measures crytalline and fluid intelligence proposes the idea that complex and stimulating environments increases brain matter to cope with new information/activities and Secondlife fits that description 100%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

One of Andrea Kurzewski’s suggestions to increase brain matter is to seek Novelty and I’m sure this is a major attribute of active residents of Secondlife – Seeking novelty and new experiences. Secondlife is, without doubt, the ultimate virtual playground for adults and a gymnasium for the brain.

Andrea Kurzewski states that there are five primary elements involved in increasing your fluid intelligence, or cognitive ability
These five primary principles are:
1. Seek Novelty
2. Challenge Yourself
3. Think Creatively
4. Do Things The Hard Way
5. Network

Using Secondlife invokes all 5 principle activities.

Secondlife is certainly a novelty, you can challenge yourself and others on a daily basis. You HAVE to think creatively and more often than not you have to do things the hard way before you find an easy way and all the while networking, instant messaging and connecting, role playing, biz meeting, flirting and chatting with people from around the world. PLUS the fun and novelty of experimenting with avatar appearance and identity and the ultimate magical control over your environment .... We can materialise/rez a fairy forest, a tropical beach house, a volcano ….. anything you can imagine is possible in Secondlife. And if it doesn’t exist you can build it !

USING SECONDLIFE MAKES US SMARTER

Here’s a marvellous TED video that re-enforces several of the above points about games and virtual worlds and how coping with these new, complex environments has a stimulating effect on our brains.




So … if you really want to give your brain a work out, become smarter and increase your grey matter and improve your networking and problem solving skills take a good look at Secondlife.
http://www.secondlife.com/

When people say that Secondlife is difficult I would say ….. nothing truly worthwhile is easy.