Second Life

In Lecture one we watched a Four Corners Documentary on the Virtual Reality Phenomena 'Second Life' where millions of people join up to a computer network and act out their second life through an animated Avitar. It is a free network where anyone can join. Payment is made only through personally advancing your avitars image and lifestyle.



Watching the documentary, I found to be quite scary as from my perspective there is nothing worse then leaving behind a first life, the reality, to become a functioning being in a different word.



The scary thing about it is that what happens to your mental and physical being after logging off second life and returning to your first? How do you act in society as a person? If you are functioning fully in a fake word where do you draw the line to come back to reality? Do the two lives cross over and become confused? How can people cope in the real world when they can create their own world and how they want to live it? The avatars are living in a fairytale and the reality is quite different. For those who become lost in Second Life, it may very well be an addiction that is hard to escape from therefore losing their first life forever. Is this a risk the players of this reality are willing to lose? And if so what life did they have before being the mind of a virtual being?

If the percentage of people involved increase susbstantially what kind of world will be living in? Will there even be a world away from the computer? Will we only leave the second life merely to sustain our bodies basic functions and needs? If so then this is a second life that I do not need.