Seeing life through the eyes of a chicken. PETA has always been known for its graphic messaging strategy. The group hopes that by seeing what’s actually happening at the factory farm, you’ll be less likely to purchase the victims.

I’ll admit that even as someone who hasn’t eaten chicken in six years, seeing the truth is still too much for me to stomach (pun intended). This PETA virtual reality game puts us in a chicken’s place to give us an idea of what these little guys go through. The animal rights organization will be demonstrating the game at the University of California-Berkeley and Pasadena City College.

In I, Chicken, participants are asked to flap their wings and walk around from the poultry’s perspective in order to get a feel for what it’s like to be a farm animal. In the demo I viewed, the player was asked to hang out and interact with other chickens in an open field, presumably to show that chickens are, in fact, social animals.

Obviously, things take a turn for the worst, when a farmer grabs the participant and shoves him or her into a cage with a bunch of other shaking chickens, and you eventually go to the slaughterhouse.

I forced myself to sit through the demonstration video (I know I’m a wimp.) and honestly, knowing the animals were virtual not real made it less difficult to watch than a video of live animals being mistreated and put to death. That said, I still cringe a bit at how us humans could possibly treat another species with such disdain and insensitivity--an issue that’s very evident in the video game. Would you try PETA’s new virtual reality video game?

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Image: Gina Fuller

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What is up with all the cyber bullying these days? Can’t we all just get along?

As a blogger, I’ve been through it. Anonymous people heaping on the negativity as if what they say doesn’t hurt. Luckily, I write about health for the most part, so my writing is less polarizing and the comments are less dramatic. The majority of people are in fact delightful, but there are those shining few who leave a stain on your day. Are these anonymous comments an acceptable form of cyber bullying?

A Pew Research Study found that 25 percent of people admit to posting comments online anonymously and one researcher out of the University of Houston found that such anonymity contributes to less civil discourse.

I acquaint it to when you’re sitting in traffic and in a heat of road rage, you lay on the horn for the elderly women who just pulled out in front of you. You wouldn’t scream at a grandma if you were face to face, but somehow the anonymity of your car makes losing your temper acceptable. It’s similar online. In fact, one study found that 53 percent of comments were uncivil if newspapers allowed commenters anonymity. When newspapers required names or links to Facebook or other social networks, that number dropped to 29 percent.

“I think people are also much more inclined to comment about something if they have a complaint. Sometimes it’s the only way you feel that you can be heard, so it winds up feeling like online comment sections are filled with negativity,” said Shayla Thiel-Stern, a professor of new media and culture at the University of Minnesota on CBSLocal.

Negative comments generally come from a small group with a loud voice.

“I don’t think we’re getting meaner as a society,” Thiel-Stern said. “I think social media emphasizes some of that meanness.”

Anonymous comments tend to be angrier, according to another study, which found that frequent venting on the internet leads to subsequent increases in anger, rather than decreases. Those who frequently rant online are significantly more angry than the norm and those who read the rants are also less happy.

According to vlogger ZE Frank, it takes more potential energy to leave comments and as a result, those comments are often laced with polarizing opinion.

Have you ever left a vicious anonymous comment online? Would you?

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Image: FHKE

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FarmVille is the green place to be for city folk reaping the rewards of rural relationships and cooperation through good, clean social gaming.

The hugely popular farming sim has my friends and family bragging on Facebook about a season of planting cash crops, helping neighbors grow lettuce instead of lawns and finding new homes for lost little duckies. It quacks me up!

The strategy of the Zynga grainchild: The user is given the chance to start their own farm, build it out and move up in levels.

After they have plowed the land and their crops are ripe for picking, they harvest the food and sell it for cash to buy new crops. Other ways to get money include helping friends with their farms or sending free gifts to friends, such as trees and farm animals.

“This is a good game because it’s not superficial where you are going out and buying clothes or houses like in other virtual games,” says my 13-year-old daughter, an avid fan who set up a farm for her 10-year-old sister in recent weeks planting eggplants, soybeans and strawberries. “You’re building crops and helping neighbors with their crops and in the coming years, it will really come down to that.”

My teen, now at level 7,  finds FarmVille lets her and her Facebook friends associate a fun game with something not product-based, and that it helps train her generation to think green.

That’s the main reason an employer in Minneapolis, Minn. set up a real organic farm as a playground and work perk for his employees. His concept is a hit as the Haberman public relations team clocks time hoeing and raking after hours.

You don’t get points with your boss for playing FarmVille so my cousin, Alan Finkelstein, plays in his spare time when he’s off work. He’s at the top of the heap with an impressive level 31. He’s a god in his neck of the woods. You don’t get to level 31 without logging some serious computer time.

“Okay, FarmVille police, I was forced to play, they kidnapped me and made me play,” Alan jests, defending his highly-coveted acreage. “I do notice more things in the world that are related to farms than I used to prior to playing.”

Alan says he gave it a go when a friend was playing and really loved it. He finds the game makes him more aware of things associated with farming and holds a “zen quality” for the L.A. journalist, husband and Facebook fanatic.

“I like to strategize, collect, plan, design, steal other folk’s designs, send gifts to friends, receive gifts from friends, and having to be patient in growing my own farm,” he says. “My cousins say to me, ‘Dude, your farm is amazing and thanks for sending me the horses’ and it’s nice to have that interaction.”

Del Monte should only have such interaction. This sim is clearly a brand of socialism Americans can get behind.

According to Virtual Worlds News, FarmVille has gained over 1 million new players per week since its June 19 launch, and currently boasts more than 11 million daily active users.

Apparently, that’s the total achieved by lead designer Mark Skaggs over his entire career with Electronic Arts where he designed other strategy games such as Command & Conquer and The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth. He says FarmVille will probably break records, largely because he’s keeping it fresh.

“One of the really fun and successful features we added is what we call the ‘Lonely Cow’ feature,” Skaggs told VWN. “You can help find it a home, then somebody claims it. You’ll get a brown cow instead of the white cow you had before. Then you milk the brown cow and you get chocolate milk! That’s a ‘moment of delight,’ totally unexpected but cool.”

We once felt that same moment of delight when competitors landed on those high-priced blue properties we monopolized – Park Place and Boardwalk – and had to fork over big bucks for encountering our big, red hotels.

I much prefer a society that works together to land big red barns, sustainable crops and organic chocolate milk. As my wise daughter said, it will really come down to that.

Main Image: Sabrina.dent

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