Co-Facilitation

Boellstorff opens his article talking about visuality in Second Life. I found particularly interesting his analysis of the common understanding that land that is owned is not independent of the land nearby to it. Groups even tried to creating zoning requirements as to preserve the aesthetic of their "neighborhood." This reminded me of the rules many gated developments have about various things such as colors of paint, the height of the grass, etc. I found it particularly interesting because many people go on Second Life because they want to shed the limitations that RL provides, however many willfully accepted these rules. In the next paragraph he notes that vision has been "valorized over sound." I believe that this is also true in RL as in the case of dealing with the loud lawnmowers, and leaf blowers to preserve the visual integrity of a space as opposed to the auditory sanctity.
I was somewhat confused over the economics of the purchase of land in Second Life. Land retains its value in RL due to its scarcity in relation to its demand. This is why land in New York City costs so much more than a patch of land in upstate New York. There are more people who want land in NYC therefore the price goes up. In SL, however, land is created by Linden Labs on a regular basis. This makes the supply unlimited, thus in economical terms, losing its scarcity. This means that every time a new patch of land is created, the value of the land currently owned goes down.
In Chapter 5 the therapeutic value of Second Life is discussed. He states that it can be helpful for both psychological and mental disorders. In the paper he gives the specific examples of autism, ADD, agoraphobia, and schizophrenia. I believe that SL might also be a helpful tool for combating other psychological disorders. I think it could be useful in treating social anxiety disorder. One example that is explained fits with my theory: "I noticed yesterday that I had no problem talking to a complete stranger at the shopping center, simply because I have spent a lot of time in SL recently doing the same thing." It could also be helpful for generalized anxiety and depression because of the ability to share your feelings with a neutral party. I also see potential in treating other phobias such as arachnophobia through controlled progressive exposure in SL that might be a helpful step before attempting a RL exposure.
I found very interesting Linde's quote in which he states, "In order to exist in the social world with a comfortable sense of being a good, socially proper, and stable person, an individual needs to have a coherent, acceptable, and constantly revised life story." I found this interesting because it shows the façade behind the real world as much the virtual. One knows that someone's virtual identity is partially fabricated, but this shows that we all wear a mask of our real life that we find to be acceptable and coherent, as well as changing that mask when we see fit in order to be happy.
There is further talk regarding the reasons behind using several avatars, as well as the race and gender of the avatars that are used. I think the application of SL as a tool to help improve the RL of the players, however, is the most important thing discussed and should be further examined.