I am one those people who has a Second Life. From personal experience, the site can become an addiction, and can make you stay online for hours and hours at a time.
Starting out, one makes an alter ego of themselves, many of which have strange names. My second life, for example, was named Wheat, and I basically made myself on the computer. Afterwards, there is an option (which one has to pay for. I didn't pay a penny for my second life.) that you can put a copy of your own face on second life, as well as a choice for your own property (whihc you have to buy as well).
Essentially, Second Life is life in fantasy land. It is a world where one lives out his or her dreams on a computer. It is somehow similar to "World of Warcraft", and the movie "Surrogates". You make friends from around the world, and in doing so, a person discovers another person's aspirations and dreams manifest in another body.
The Second Life doesn't have much benefit to society however. Society becomes an giant emotionless zombie, sitting on the computer, letting its mind run in virtual reality, and disallow a person's body to connect with the true real world.
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Jonathon,
ReplyDeletei am very glad that although you admitted "Second Life" to be addicting, you did not become addicted to it. Obviously one can see the appeal to creating a virtual self. Itallows you to reinvent yourself in a place where noone knows you. Noone can judge you on your appearance. But like you said, it is a virtual world and if people become addicted to it they do not connect with the real world and people have to beable to distinguish between the virtual world and reality.
Agreed with first comment, the ability to place importance on the physical world is more advantageous to the subject. If the subject gets wrapped up in a video game, although there are other people there and although it is fun, it might not be as important as the real world in which we live.
ReplyDeleteWow, Im glad you guys agree that as fun as social networking sites can be, there is a limit to it. I always thouht that there is nothing more addictive than facebook, but boy am I wrong!Second Life seems to have taken the idea of a virtual world to an entirely different level. To be able to create an alternte place and person for oneself seems to be, not only addicting, but dngerous as well.
ReplyDeleteI guess different people have different purposes for Second Life, it really depends on what your goal is. Is it to elevate your own feelings of importance to the point where it becomes addicting? Kind of like how myspace tells someone how "popular" they are because they have 234,943,129 friends. But it does have societal benefits when teachers can use it as an out-of-classroom resource for students. To deny technology in this modern age would be ignorant as it is an integral part of society. However, one must learn to use it moderately in order not to isolate themselves.
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