Alcyan: What does Second Life offers that Real Life doesn’t to disabled people and how easy or hard is for a disable person to adjust to this environment?
Gaia: SL helps level the playing field, because it allows me to use my adaptive software to enhance my usable vision. The computer becomes an extension of myself, and, because I can magnify my screen, I can see things, and find things, I couldn’t in RL. With the PC and SL, I can, for example, go hang gliding (not possible in RL for me), and plan to take on learning how to fly the helicopter a friend game me, and try driving a car, ski, horseback ride, and …whatever else I fancy.
I have a dear friend who is a quadriplegic, so can’t ever dance in RL, and we love to go dancing! Are there obstacles, of course. LL, for all its rhetoric, has demonstrated its lack of real interest in making SL accessible, especially to visually impaired users. Finding poseballs is extremely difficult for me, among other things, and because I can’t use my screen reader in my viewer, I have to create a separate account using a 3rd party viewer, and jump though a lot of hoops, just to be able to IM and use nearby chat comfortably. That I do these things demonstrates both my interest in, and commitment to, SL, but I am fiercely determined, and if there is a way to do something, I’ll find it, even if I have to create it.
Alcyan: In real life, people with disability sometimes experience discrimination from the non disable one, how things are here in second life?
Gaia: Well, unless I have to do something like find a pink poseball, others might not even know I have a visual disability. If I find I must explain this, usually, people are extremely understanding and helpful. There will always be people in the world who are prejudiced in one way or another, but I learned a long time to simply dismiss them as irrelevant. The fact that I have many delightful friends here tells me that, for the most part, I am accepted for who, not what, I am.
Alcyan: What is the message you would like to give to people with disabilities or without disabilities using this virtual environment?
Gaia: This environment is rich and has unlimited possibilities. It allows all people to interact as equals, it allows people with disabilities to surmount them, and allows people to interact with others from different cultures. Here, I can visit any corner of the world (and beyond), enjoy such things as Medieval life, dance at formal balls, run with wolves, have romantic interludes with very handsome and charming gentlemen, or learn a foreign language. I would urge all people, disable or not, to fully explore and become involved in SL. Do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Visit all the places you’ve always wanted to visit. Time travel. Expand your horizons and try something new. Here, you can make any dream come true or learn new skills. Speaking of which, learning to build is high on my agenda of things I want to learn. If I’m right, SL (and my screen magnifier) will allow me to create beautiful things!