My first life is busy enough thanks!



Gamerunner

I must be missing something.  This is the overriding thought I had whilst wandering through Second Life.  Maybe I just wasn't hanging out where all the 'cool kids' were.  But there was hardly anyone around where I was, and certainly nobody was talking to me.  What exactly was I doing there?  Well, in the interests of understanding why this virtual world has become so popular I thought it was only fair that I do my research.  But to be honest, I still don't get it. 

Can someone explain to me the point of Second Life?  What do people get out of it?  As far as I can make sense of it, it's either a chance to explore another identity, or to connect with others and potentially build relationships.  Can't they just do that in real life?  Well, perhaps not the exploring another identity part, but certainly meeting people and building relationships can be done in real life. Key social media theorists such as Sherry Turkle point to the fact that the more 'connected' we are becoming, the more isolated we become.  We may think we're broadening our horizons, meeting new people, trying new things, but in the meantime are we forgetting how to interact in a physical sense, on a face to face basis? 

 



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What really scares me is some of the comments made about the potential of Second Life.  The creator, Phillip Rosedale, believes it could become the search engine of the future.  Multinational companies are rushing in to Second Life because they don't want to miss out on the next big thing.  There are already shops where you can buy things for your avatar, such as clothes, and also for your 'real' self (You Only Live Twice).  To me, this plays straight into Baudrillard's dystopic view of hyperreality - where the online world becomes more real to us than our 'real' life (Baudrillard).  Almost like the world of the Matrix - where we're all 'plugged in' living these beautiful, perfect online lives, but we've forgotten about our physical reality.  We're already swamped on a daily basis with images of beautiful people that we're supposed to look like, act like and live like.  Will we move to an online world where we can look, act and live however we want to, and yet be frustrated by and dissatisfied with our physical selves?

Matrix

For myself, I can't really see that we will all end up like mindless drones,  tapping away at our computer keyboards 24/7.  I've tried Second Life, but to be honest, my first life keeps me busy enough!  Two kids, part-time job, part-time study doesn't leave much time for anything else.  I admit to loving social media as much as the next person - I don't think I would keep in touch with anywhere near as many of my friends if it weren't for Facebook.  But as to having a 'second life' online, well I can't really see how my real life is so bad or dissatisfying to me that I would really need to create another life to fill some need within me.  Because that's really the conclusion I've come to - that people who become so invested in these online worlds, to the extent that they refer to their avatar like a living, breathing person; who have relationships, sex and even get married in an online world - must feel as though something is missing from their real life.  Apart from being able to fly and  to teleport - what's on offer in these online environments that we can't get in our physical reality?  Nobody's perfect, we're not all stunningly beautiful, slim, sexy, successful, wealthy, intelligent... but isn't that what makes us so great?  We're all unique, we're all different and we all have value right here, and right now.  Second Life?  No thanks, I'm busy enough (and happy enough) with my first one!