Virtual Nightmare: Meth Labs in Second Life

October 11, 2010

Gary Stix, who covers neuroscience for Scientific American, recently reported on how one researcher is using the virtual world, Second Life, to better understand drug cravings.

Chris Culbertson, a neuroscientist at UCLA, designed a virtual environment on Second Life in hopes of generating a Pavlovian response from drug users craving a fix. According to Stix,

Culbertson created a virtual meth house, a place where addicts gather, and invited 17 meth users to U.C.L.A. to test it out. To determine their levels of craving, Culbertson had the addicts fill out questionnaires and measured their heart rates as they navigated via computer through the meth house on Second Life.

Can you imagine recruiting 17 meth addicts to visit your lab? Stix doesn’t say what happened when they were released, presumably with a little cash in their pockets for participating in the experiment. He does say that Second Life’s meth house is a private affair, and not accessible to the public.

If that is not entertaining enough for you, the ads on Scientific American will enhance your experience of the article. Next to the story on meth labs in Second Life, SciAm carries an ad for “Into the Lost Crystal Caves” with what look like giant stalactites of crack. It’s enough to drive a meth addict wild. The ad is a promotion for a National Geographic program that premieres this Sunday.

Culbertson is not the only researcher using virtual reality to treat drug addiction. Duke University professor Zach Rosenthal has developed a virtual reality game to guide drug users through tempting environments in order to help them learn how to deal with cravings. Rosenthal told Good Morning America:

What we’re trying to do is take people into a virtual crack-related neighborhood or crack-related setting and have them experience cravings, just like they would in the real world.

Culbertson’s research has shown that virtual environments are more effective in eliciting cravings than other signals, such as videos of people using drugs. You can read an interview with Culbertson about his work in virtual worlds at the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17 blog.

STEVE O’KEEFE
News Editor, Minitrends Blog

Source: “Craving a Cure: A Virtual Meth House Serves as Fodder for Addiction Studies,” Scientific American, 10/07/10
Source: “Virtual Reality Game Helps Drug Addicts Recover,” Good Morning America, 11/05/07
Source: “The Salon Interviews: The Use of Virtual Reality in Addiction Medicine,” Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17, 01/07/09
Image from ad in Scientific American, used under Fair Use: Commentary.

Virtual World Entrepreneur of the Year 2010

October 4, 2010

Last week, SLentrepreneur Magazine began accepting entries for the 2010 SLentrepreneur of the Year Award, and this year the contest is open to anyone with a Second Life identity. According to publisher and editor, Avarie Parker:

For the first time, I have opened up SLENTRE.COM’s contest for the top Second Life entrepreneur to anyone with a Second Life avatar. The voting this year is not limited to a small list of nominees but voters can ‘write-in’ the name of ANY virtual entrepreneur they feel has had an impact on the Second Life community.

Second Life is the largest online community, dubbed “virtual words,” in an ever-growing universe of synthetic reality. With over 18 million registered users, Second Life is the brand leader. If you are just trying to get your head around Facebook, you might consider leaping past it and building a profile on Second Life instead, because that’s where Facebook and other social networks are headed.

Second Life is part game and part serious business — just like real life. You’re born into Second Life as an avatar (a cartoon you). From there, you must make friends, get directions, and find work if you plan to buy anything like clothes or a house. In Second Life, transactions are made in Linden Dollars, named after Linden Labs, creator of Second Life.

One way of making money from Linden Dollars is to exchange them for real currency. There are complications with any currency swaps, and Second Life has already experienced some serious banking disruptions. But people make real money selling such things as avatars and access to simulated environments.

People also make money using virtual worlds to do real-world activities, such as meetings, in a less expensive and more creative environment. Many companies make presentations and buy advertising in virtual worlds. Many other companies use virtual-world real estate for team projects.

One place to start investigating virtual worlds is Expanding Involvements in Virtual Worlds, an excerpt from the new book MINITRENDS, by John and Carrie Vanston. I also recommend SLentrepreneur Magazine and its website, SLentre.com, for their coverage of entrepreneurship in virtual worlds, including profiles of the nominees for SLentrepreneur of the Year in 2008 and 2009.

Second Life also provides an excellent summary, called Working in Second Life, that explains novel ways to use virtual worlds to save money or make money in the real world. I recommend the 10-page PDF version for a quick download on doing business in Second Life.

STEVE O’KEEFE
News Editor, Minitrends Blog

Source: “Vote for SLentrepreneur of the Year 2010,” SLentrepreneur Magazine, 09/30/10
Source: “Working In Second Life FAQs,” Linden Research, Inc.
Image Source: Second Life Logo, Linden Research, Inc.; used under Fair Use: Reporting.

Doctors Prescribe Virtual Reality for Returning Iraq Veterans

September 28, 2010

A video tour of Virtual Iraq, courtesy NewYorkerDotCom.

One of the MINITRENDS discussed in the book MINITRENDS is the “Expanding Involvement in Virtual Worlds.” We are giving away that excerpt from the book at the MINITRENDS website. One of the timely ways virtual worlds are being used is to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in returning Iraq War veterans.

In an article on the blog NextGov, a new project from GovernmentExecutive.com, Bob Brewin tells us that as many as 35% of Iraq War veterans suffer from PTSD. Brewin reveals:

[T]he Army has instigated a four-year study at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma [Washington] to track the results of using virtual reality to treat the disorder.

The specific therapy cited in Brewin’s article is the VR program, Virtual Iraq, developed by Dr. Michael Kramer at the Veterans’ Administration’s PTSD Clinic. Caitlin McNally at FRONTLINE interviewed Dr. Kramer about the technology in 2009.

Virtual Iraq is a simulated Iraq War environment designed to help vets relive traumatic events as a trigger to talking about them or releasing pent-up emotions. “It is not a game,” says The New Yorker‘s Sue Halprin in a video tour of Virtual Iraq.

In one of the ironic twists to this story, Virtual Iraq was made from a video game, “Full Spectrum Warrior,” that was itself made from a training video used by the Department of Defense. The game was transformed into an immersion-therapy virtual world by Albert Rizzo, a psychologist working with the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California (USC).

In her detailed article for The New Yorker, Halprin collects anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of virtual therapy from several vets and therapists trained to administer the VR program. Virtual therapy is an example of the business, medical, and scientific opportunities opening up for software and hardware that can immerse people into artificial worlds in a convincing way.

The U.S. Army is now using Virtual Iraq in six locations. If the early reports hold, we can expect to see a large increase in the number of facilities offering virtual therapy, and not just for PTSD.

by Steve O’Keefe
News Editor, Minitrends Blog

Source: “Army studying use of virtual reality to treat post-traumatic stress,” NextGov, 02/22/10
Source: “Virtual reality therapy in New York,” FRONTLINE, 04/23/09
Source: “Virtual Iraq,” The New Yorker, 05/19/08
Source: “Not a Game: Inside Virtual Iraq” (VIDEO), NewYorkerDotCom, 05/19/08