The Growth and Direction of Healthcare Support Groups in Virtual Worlds

Autores/as

  • John Robert Norris

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v2i2.658

Palabras clave:

Second Life, IMVU, There, Kaneva, Support Groups, Healthcare

Resumen

What is the growth and direction of healthcare support groups grow in virtual worlds? Data was collected on over 300 groups from virtual worlds, Second Life, IMVU, There, and Kaneva. A collection of non-virtual world support groups was added. Similar categories of groups were found to be generally popular across worlds. The percentage of groups in categories of healthcare issues was also generally analogous between worlds. The long tail effect was shown- only a few groups had high populations. Group creation rate displayed generally similar growth between worlds. The worlds' demographics and features were suggested to account for differences. Limited data availability and vague definitions of groups and categories hampered analysis.

Biografía del autor/a

  • John Robert Norris
    Biomedical Informaticist
Cover for v2 i2 Health & Healthcare

Descargas

Publicado

2009-05-04

Número

Vol. 2 Núm. 2 (2009): 3D Virtual Worlds for Health and Healthcare

Sección

Peer Reviewed Research Papers

Licencia

The JVWR is an academic journal. As such, it is dedicated to the open exchange of information. For this reason, JVWR is freely available to individuals and institutions. Copies of this journal or articles in this journal may be distributed for research or educational purposes only free of charge and without permission. However, the JVWR does not grant permission for use of any content in advertisements or advertising supplements or in any manner that would imply an endorsement of any product or service. All uses beyond research or educational purposes require the written permission of the JVWR. Authors who publish in the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research will release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivative Works 3.0 United States (cc-by-nd) license. This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. The publisher perpetually authorizes participants in the LOCKSS system to archive and restore our publication through the LOCKSS System for the benefit of all LOCKSS System participants. Specifically participating libraries may: