My View On Second Life!

I first heard about Second Life from my Dad. He has been trying to convince me Second Life is “hip and up-and coming” for about a year now. With that being said, I had pretty much ruled out the possibility of it being at all cool with my age group. Okay, enough with the jokes! I have heard a bit about Second Life here and there, but never really took the time to really explore it until now. Upon research, I have found that Second Life is a wealth of information, personality and technological advances. The founder or Second Life, Philip Rosendale, is convinced that Second life, although already a huge success, will take over much of the physical social interaction that we experience on a daily basis. Although I do believe that Second Life is amazing for the capabilities that it offers, I find it scary that living in the virtual world could take precedence over learning to excel and grow in the real world.

Second life can be used for a variety of different purposes. Some people merely use it for play, while others use it for communication and learning, and others yet, can use it as a source of income. Second life has its own internal economy made of Linden dollars. Linden dollars can be used to buy and sell anything from property to clothing for your avatar. The Linden dollar is then translated in to real monetary units. The second life world is estimated to be about ten times the actual size of San Francisco. Some of the features in second life include buying property, maintaining a family, managing finances, entertainment, educational opportunities, and religious affiliation. Inside Second Life, the player creates an avatar, which is a completely new identity. You can choose characteristics for yourself in second life that you have no control over in real life. For example, the player can choose the gender of their character, as well has hair color, eye color and the person style of their character. In Rosendale’s lecture for TED, he states that Second Life is targeted towards a wide range of age groups, but the average age user is thirty-two years old. I can understand the appeal that this virtual world may have for people upwards of their thirties, feeling as though they are regaining an opportunity to experience things that they may have missed, an opportunity to reinvent themselves, and take a path that they may have wished they had pursued earlier in life.

Although I find the concept behind Second Life interesting, I also see it as a dangerous prospect. As Philip Rosendale said, the world is moving in a direction that gravitates heavily towards using technology as a way to do almost all required daily activity. With this sort of mindset it is becoming easier and easier to lay off of the simple human interactions that usually are mixed in with everyday activity. People are no longer forced to make conversation in person, and do not need to go any further than their computer desk at home to socialize. While society is weaning its way off of this natural human interaction, we are evolving more in to creatures that require less of a need for the human touch and personal connection. If people are soon able to rely on words on a computer screen as a means of comfort rather than a hug from a close friend, what will become human emotions? Will they too adapt to this new lifestyle? It is my hope that we can continue to use this type of technology to our benefit but know the limits and be able to recognize when it becomes too much of a good thing.