Connected Play by Kafai Yasmin B.;Fields Deborah A.;Ito Mizuko; & Deborah A. Fields

Author:Kafai, Yasmin B.;Fields, Deborah A.;Ito, Mizuko; & Deborah A. Fields [Kafai, Yasmin B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3339695
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2013-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

6

Science Play

Run for the hills, bounce to the CDC,

It doesn’t matter what you do,

this virus ALWAYS gets the best of you.

Whether you’re sat on, whispered to or get a kiss,

You never win against this blotchy abyss.

They say they got rid of rashes, and annoying pimply things!

But they’re all over everyone’s face, the size of diamond rings!

“Achoo” say all the avatars in the contaminated room,

the pox is spreading to EVERYONE like a giant cloud of doom.

And now the myths commence of how to end this horror.

You can buy all the cover-ups and contribute all you want, but you’ll find you’re only getting poorer.

Some people cheer the pox on. Others protest and say: “Booooo!”

But either way they got sadder, as the pimples grew and grew.

WhyPox has engulfed this fair town like a giant wormhole in space.

But just as everyone thinks it’s the end of Whyville, it disapears without a trace.

When the pimples go away, we all think that it’s the end.

But wait 12 months, and there you go, the pox has returned. AGAIN.

—Theboy2, Whyville Poet1

“Why, Why, Why Pox?”

WhyPox, the outbreak described above by self-proclaimed Whyville poet Theboy2, is a virtual epidemic that appears annually in Whyville, corresponding to the time of the actual flu season. During the outbreaks of WhyPox, infected Whyvillians show two symptoms: red pimples appeared on their avatars and sneezing interrupted their chat, with “sneezing” and the word “achoo” appearing amid their chat phrases. Numedeon intended the WhyPox epidemic for educational purposes. Players could track their disease in community graphs in a virtual CDC (a Center for Disease Control) in Whyville, post theories about its cause and transmission mechanisms, and make predictions about when the epidemic would end. They could also run simulations of the epidemic and discuss the epidemic in articles in the Whyville Times, like the one written by Theboy2. While most epidemic outbreaks don’t inspire poems, his writings do capture many facets of the phenomenon—the possible disease vectors and various attempts to hide or cheer on the WhyPox outbreak.

In early 2005, we initiated and observed an outbreak of WhyPox to understand better participants’ learning experiences inside and outside of school. Aidan (screen name: masher47), one of Zoe’s club mates, was one of the first club players who experienced the WhyPox outbreak. On February 5, a Saturday afternoon, Aidan logged on and stayed in Whyville for a full ninety minutes. Almost immediately after logging in, he teleported to Mars and saw a friend from the club, Trevor. Then he engaged in his typical practice of making friends and flirting with potential girlfriends by going around Whyville and saying “hi” or “asl” (age-sex-location).

After a couple of minutes, he noticed someone sneeze (“Achoo!”) and whispered “bless you.” Quickly noticing that many people were sneezing, he traveled rapidly around Whyville, going to the Moon and then back to Mars to see if the sneezing was happening everywhere and asking broadly in chat, “what is wrong with everyone?”

Ten minutes after he first went online, he realized that he himself had caught WhyPox, as “Achoo” started appearing in his chat and whispers.

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