So I will continue with my continuing segment of 'My Thoughts On...' by talking about Second Life.
Is it dangerous to have a second life that is more desirable than your ordinary one? Are Second Life and other avatar-based programs a form of escapism?
I don’t think that it is dangerous to have an online second life; it is just how you use it that can be detrimental. I believe once your second life becomes your sole purpose for interaction, that is when you have crossed into grey area. People are fascinated with living different lives. A perfect example would the ever-popular videogame called “The Sims”, where you define what your character looks like, what they do during the day. Almost every possible characteristic can be defined in “The Sims”. Things like Second Life, The Sims, and World of Warcraft are all fine and dandy, but once you cannot recognize the line between the real world and the fantasy world, you've gone too far.
I definitely think Second Life and other avatar-based programs are a form of escapism. People always dream of having a better life, usually because their life in the real world has been a struggle filled with loss and failed expectations. Life is hard. People make these second lives to live the life they determined they have missed out on. In this case, a created online avatar was used as an alternate life to live out in a fabricated digital world. I am an optimist. My life so far in my twenty years on this earth has been hard, filled with pain and loss. But I have to believe that things will get better and they do get better. In my opinion, you cannot dwell in the past. You have to move on and make the best of the life that you have. A fantasy world is just that; a fantasy. These ‘second lives’ are a form of escape for people that think they have missed out on life in the real world and that all they have left is their lives in the fantasy world.
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