Every now and then, a RL friend of mine comes with her concerns about my possible addiction on Second Life and escaping from what is called reality.
You are spending too much time in the game. What about real life? All of you are wasting too much energy, time and creativity on something that doesn’t exists. What about real life issues? What about politics, ecology and other things of life importance?
I am not going to rumble about if SL is a game or not. Nor I will talk about serious uses of Second Life and other virtual worlds, like educational, artistic or business uses.
The question is why is second life considered something that is not real. Because one cannot physically touch the avatar or in-world objects? Because prims disappear after auto-return period? Because avatar looks different than its corresponding human? Well yes, you cannot physically touch anything inside metaverse. Prims do disappear and very few residents tend to make their avatars look like their flash and bones. But does all that makes our world unreal?
There is another similar case. It comes from griefers. Just as trolls of the flatworld internet they are doing their dirty fun with excuse that “it is just internet. It is not real.” But, in both cases, it is real. It is real even in role-playing. All the words typed, all the things done are real, whether in real life, in flatworld or in second life. Harassment is done even if there are no physical bodies to be hurt. Just remember the story of virtual raping. On the other end, nice words stays nice no matter how far our tongues and fingers are. This is the world of information, and any information transmitted is real. And information is not only transmitted via chat line. Everything said, done or made counts, and it is real. Just the same as the voice over the phone line is real despite that we can’t see the lips that speak.
In that sense, is an extension of real life. Whether our avatars resembles ourselves or are something completely different, things they do, build or say is real, and it is done by the humans behind them. Avatar’s words are no different than words that human wrote on the paper. Their builds may just be entries in Linden Lab’s databases but they do exist, and they are our creations.
SL is just one and perharps the most tempting escape from the real world into a play.
the point is you give yourself to something that – yes, exists – but is of no value to the actual problems inside&around you. It might be a therapy, I think, for one to playfully rests his cells in creativity and imaginary world..
but spending more and more time there + being concerned much more for the avatar then the real self (lack of meals 4ex.) + replacing/decreasing real life experience (sex, socialization, hanging outdoor) for adventuristic role play = are just signs that something smells fishy!
the bottom line is what is enough *real* valuable and precious for whom?
You are anticipating internet addiction and deviant behaviour for all the residents of metaverse. Yes, some people are easily slipping into addictions and running away from real life, but it is a bit exaggeration to state that virtual worlds are bad because all their users are addicts who runs away from reality. In the manner like that we can easily dismiss not only internet but also television, telephone and many other neat inventions that our civilisation uses.
unfortunately, it smells like lack of fish :)
am-sha i sometimes share your concerns, but since i made a decision not to involve myself into his life as much as possible, i kind a have a slightly different attitude.
more and more i believe that he is doing well in the SL and my only worry is what will happen when one gets bored with SL where he went after being bored with RL. Where then?
but after all, knowing how much he loves himself (more then anything and anyone in RL) i have this last thought that he will be fine and will not let himself became so addicted that it bothers him.
i hope. and love .