the return of adventure?

Tuesday, September 09, 2003, at 12:26PM

By Eric Richardson

One of my classes this semester is "Intro to Communications Technology." I know, I know... It's not fair for me to take things like this, but it's required for my major, so I'm there.

I actually think the class is kind of cool, as it tackles technology more from a cultural perspective than from a hands-on angle. I think that will do people infinitely more good, so I'm glad to see it heading that direction. COMM isn't a technology major -- as evidenced by the people in the class -- but it most definitely is a major that's highly concerned with cultural interaction. Anyway...

Today in the discussion section we were set loose on LambdaMOO. Now, my discussion section is me, another guy who wasn't there today, and a little over a dozen girls, so what interested me was how these girls reacted to the whole MUD/MOO concept. They had no idea what they were doing, but they jumped in whole-heartedly. It made me wonder if maybe the proliferation of IM and renewed communication via typing has primed the Internet world for something like this to hit it big among a younger mainstream crowd.