Sunday 11 November 2007

New SL survey - results now available

A new set of survey results, SL Survey: Residents profile, gambling & engagement, is now available. I recall answering the questions in this survey what seems like a long time ago - back when it was first announced. At the time, I remember thinking that some of the questions where slightly oddly phrased. I still think so actually. That said, there are some interesting findings and it is worth a quick look.

657 people took part.

In terms of demographics, the 60:40 (men:women) gender balance feels more likely (to me) than the 50:50 one often hears quoted, though I don't understand why France accounts for 15% of the respondents? About a 1/3 of people log into SL 3 times or more per day with the majority (almost 60%) being in-world for between 1 and 3 hours.

About a 1/4 of respondents sell goods or services from a shop with slightly more (about 30%) providing education or training in some form. About half take classes to learn something themselves and about 37% promote art or culture.

Over 50% of respondents claim to go into Second Life to forget about RL problems (at least sometimes) and more than 15% say they have lied to someone in order to be able to connect to SL. Blimey... that feels slightly worrying to me. Even worse, about 1 in 5 respondents feel frustrated and/or depressed when they compare their real life with their Second Life and well over 30% consider SL definitely better than their real life! To which one is tempted to say, "get a life" - but perhaps that's the problem :-)

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