[Feature] So You Think You Need a Second Life?

On a recent episode of the Office, we find out that the character of Dwight Schrute has been spending a lot of time on the virtual online community Second Life:

Dwight Schrute: “I signed up for Second Life about a year ago. Back then, my life was so great that I literally wanted a second one. Absolutely everything was the same...except I could fly.”

That is definitely an interesting take on the online phenomenon that is Second Life. And it is probably a unique take on it, as most of the people on Second Life use it to escape reality, not to supplement the greatness that is their current life.

For those of you who are technologically challenged, Second Life is an internet-based virtual community, massively multiplayer online game (mmog), that launched in 2003, with over 11.5 million registered users currently. The Second Life community is entirely based on the active interaction of its “residents” (users), who create avatars (the user’s representation of him/herself) to do said interaction with other users. You follow?

Second Life provides a platform to create a new self- look however you want, go by whatever name you want, and do whatever you want, all without the pesky repercussions that might follow if done in real life. It is basically a world in which you could act out your wildest fantasies (Flying? Transporting? Meaningless sex with strangers? Not a problem!) It is pretty impressive that Second Life has continued to grow and thrive even with its slow loading time, difficult navigation, the requirement of a computer with a graphic card capability, the hours necessary to create and perfect your avatar/life/world, and the fact that you have to buy fake stuff with real money.

So then what is this fascination of living out a second life? Is it the anonymity of acting out a dream life behind the safe haven of a computer screen? Is it the idea of meeting new people without having to actually meet them? Whatever it is, this virtual world is something millions of people are addicted to, and spend a good part of their lives on. The thing about Second Life is that you’re not playing something in solitaire; everything you do affects other users’ avatars, and vice versa. It is about connections and how those connections propel your second life forward. It’s about developing relationships with strangers and connecting with them on all sorts of levels, sometimes to the point of becoming ‘intimately’ involved. After all, coupling and marriages are perfectly acceptable traditions in real life, so why not in Second Life?

Then if one is spending all this time online, chatting and interacting with another person that they’ve never actually met, to the point where their avatars are dating, or having sex, or are married, what does that mean in real life, especially if he/she (or both) have real-life significant others? It might sound ludicrous, but it happens more than you think. This is a great article that poses the question of whether a virtual affair is real-world infidelity. It highlights something I’ve encountered over and over again in my Second Life research- the intimate relationships people seem to create with in this virtual community, and how often they become as important as, or indistinguishable from, real-life relationships.

There’s always stories about people meeting through social networking sites like myspace and getting into real-life relationships (can we say, dangerous??), but to become involved with someone through a virtual world, and have that bleed into how you live your real life? I would say that yes, even without actual physical interaction, the emotional investment into the relationship and this made-up world signals something along the lines of infidelity.

I started with a quote from the Office, and I’ll end with one:
Dwight Schrute: "Second Life is not a game. It is a multi-user, virtual environment. It doesn't have points, or scores, it doesn't have winners or losers."
Jim Halpert: "Oh it has losers."

I’m not saying I completely agree with Jim. Escaping reality can be fun, and completely necessary at times. But everything is only ok in moderation. If you're spending more time living in a virtual community instead of interacting with the living, breathing, real people in your life, then maybe Jim has a point.