Corinda’s recent blog post sparked in me the urge to reply, but as I realised my reply would most likely be very long, I opted to make it an entry of my own.  I suggest reading hers first; it’s okay, I’ll wait right here.

For me, Second Life came along right when I needed it.  I had just moved to a foreign country where I knew only one person, and I was unemployed for a stretch of about a year and a half.  Cooped up in the house all day and with no sense of purpose or direction, I slowly grew depressed and anxious.  Then my man read an article in the news about someone who had made a living through a virtual world called Second Life, and this certainly caught our attention.  We created accounts almost immediately–I as Chernobyl Rasmuson, and he as Thor Freenote.  He decided it wasn’t his thing after only a couple days of noobhood, but I kept going and I’ll tell you why.

The majority of Second Life Residents see and use Second Life as a social tool for meeting new people and hanging out at fun places.  I’m not a very social person (see previous entry), so the draw for me was different, and twofold: the creative outlet with which it provided me, and just my morbid curiosity at all the bizarre things that existed or were possible in Second Life.  Attending building classes in Second Life made me feel SO good, down to my very core.  Here I was, basically a shut-in, and yet I was learning something in a virtual classroom.  I was able to interact with the instructor and my classmates, who were not mere artificial intelligence robots, but actual people somewhere else in the world.  That was supremely thrilling and fascinating to me.

Like every noob, I needed money too.  Hearing that people could hold jobs in Second Life (and having no job of my own in the real world), I was definitely eager to find employment!  In September 2007, I was hired as a Tringo hostess in South I City.  I got paid to play games and chat with people–pretty superb, if you ask me!  It was just what I needed.

Second Life did indeed fill a void in my life.  One could argue whether or not my void was filled with “healthy activities” but I think the idea that too much internet usage is “unhealthy” is an obsolete and ignorant view.  Unlike watching television, using the internet or Second Life actually requires use of the brain, to make choices and react to changes.  Internet usage becomes unhealthy when one neglects healthy or necessary real-life activities in favour of online activities.  An extreme example is the South Korean couple who spent so much time online that their infant daughter starved to death.

Sometimes when someone claims, “it’s a good thing, it makes me feel good about myself and gives me a sense of purpose,” someone will reply, “yes, but it isn’t real.”  The feelings most certainly are real.  I may not be physically present in a classroom, or receiving real currency as my paycheck, but the mental and emotional benefits are the same.  Scientific studies of the brain have shown that our brains cannot tell the difference between an object we see and our imagination or memory of that same object.  If our brain doesn’t make a distinction between real and imaginary, then maybe we shouldn’t place so much importance on the physical world and assume its superiority over all else.

Now I have been employed in the real world for the last two years, but I remain in Second Life because it does offer me a lot of creative freedom, and I am still morbidly curious about all the oddities of this virtual world.  Managing the Seven Isles means I need to sign in every day if possible, which is honestly more than I would otherwise like to sign in, but it’s a small sacrifice for the joy of having created something beautiful.  Still, whenever the electricity or internet goes out, or I’m away from Second Life for a prolonged period of time, I enjoy the time I spend in the real world.  I can quit anytime.

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