I was watching an episode of Law and Order: SVU the other day with my 17-year-old daughter, and saw the detectives track a potential killer in Second Life. What is Second Life? It is a virtual world, created in 2003, but popularized in the media in late 2006 when it exploded from a relatively unknown site, to appearing on major television shows. Briefly, anyone can join Second Life by becoming a “resident.” Residents create avatars, or representations of themselves, using two-dimensional icons that are personalized. An avatar can be human-like or non-human. In effect, your avatar can look like anything you choose. Once you create your avatar you are free to roam Second Life. As you motor along you meet and chat with other residents, buy products (both real and virtual), create businesses, build houses, play games, or do just about anything you wish. If you have never been there this may seem silly or a waste of time but more than 20 million users find it compelling and addictive.
A psychologist friend of mine told me that one of his clients confessed to spending substantial amounts of time in Second Life, mostly finding female avatars and having virtual sexual relations. Needless to say, this was causing a strain on his marriage. His argument was that he was just doing the same thing as if her were playing a video game so he did not understand why his wife was so upset and hurt by his preoccupation with this virtual world when he had a real world right outside his computer.
Second Life is just one of many virtual worlds, although it happens to be more visually stimulating than sites such as MySpace or Facebook, which are based more on communication thorough written words. Nonetheless, these are all virtual worlds and people are flocking to them in droves. MySpace currently houses more than 200,000,000 sites, most created by pre-teens, adolescents, young adults, and yes, even older adults (who are the fastest growing segment of MySpace users). This makes it the 5th largest country in the world. According to Gartner, Inc., a company that analyzes Internet trends, by the end of 2011, 80% of all active Internet users will belong to at least one virtual world and many will belong to several simultaneously. This is a staggering figure. We already know that these virtual worlds appeal to teenagers with more than 50% of 12- to 17-year-olds already having a presence on at least one social network according to national surveys by Pew Internet & American Life Project’s latest reports.
In my book, “Me, MySpace, and I” I talk a lot about teenagers and how they relate to cyberspace, technology, and, of course, MySpace. But this phenomenon is not limited to teens. Moms and dads have virtual worlds as do even grandma and grandpa. What does it mean that so many people crave life in a virtual world? What does this say about our “real world?” From the standpoint of a parent and someone who has studied reactions to technology for more than 20 years, it speaks yards about how our real world is not meeting our needs. If it were, we would not need to spend so much time in cyberspace. What needs are not being met in RL (real life)? From my research with children, adolescents, and adults, it is clear that these social worlds are just that – social. People are craving communication and companionship with other humans. Given the current state of our society, where we rarely know our neighbors since they most likely are only living there for a short period of time until they move on, virtual worlds provide an online neighborhood with a never-ending supply of “friends” and neighbors.
Is this good or bad? I think it is a bit of both. For many people, including children and adolescents, their world is so limited that they wake up, go to school, participate in after-school activities, go home (often to an empty house), do their homework, watch television, and go to bed. There is precious little time for friends, at least face to face in RL. So, virtual worlds such as Second Life and MySpace provide opportunities for them to socialize and make friends, even if those friends may not be people they would ever meet in RL. The good part is that it allows them to learn to be social and to experiment with different forms of their “self.” According to psychologists we possess a variety of selves, including your true self, ideal self and ought self. The true self is how you present yourself to the world. The ideal self is how you would like to be seen by other people and the ought self is how you think other people expect you to act. Virtual worlds provide opportunities to work on all three selves and according to more than 2,500 interviews with MySpacers; this is exactly what they are doing.
Is it bad? It can be. There are a plethora of potential potholes including Internet addiction, cyberbullying, pornography, sexual predators, and anything else the media can hype as a negative aspect of virtual worlds. How bad are these? My own research as well as that done by the Pew group and Crimes Against Children Research Center, indicates that these problems are not as bad as the media portrayals. In fact, long-term studies show that most of these potential Internet hazards have declined over the past few years.
Whether it is Second Life, MySpace, Facebook or any other virtual social network, the chances are that the best way to stay safe is through moderation. Parents need to help monitor and limit their children’s use and exposure and adults need to monitor their own use as well as that of their family and friends. Technology can be quite addicting. It is fast, visually stimulating, and fun, but it cannot be your only social outlet. You inhabit RL and you have to spend time there to develop real-world skills and friendships.
0 comments:
Post a Comment