A second life?

We’ve all heard at one point or another about people living double lives, but I never thought that it would amount to something as extraordinary as an online based world that is very similar, if not exactly like what people live everyday. Although there are differences between people who live double lives and the people who choose to partake in Second Life, I have to wonder if they are really that different. Someone who has two different lives, for instance, may be someone who is a shy desk clerk during the day and an outgoing party individual at night. This reminds me of a specific Second Life participant. This individual’s reason was that second life allowed him to be the person he had always wished he could have been if it weren’t for his Cerebral Palsy. Second Life allowed him to dance and to meet people he would not have met in real life. I thought that his story was compelling. I felt sadness but also joy because he found something that he really enjoyed doing and that this was not an ‘activity’ that limited him in any way.

I think Second life is just the online version of someone who wants or is living the ‘double life’ in reality. There are endless reasons as to why someone would choose to participate or ‘live’ in second life. I believe that this is what the Internet has provided society – A way to live the way we always wanted to but never or not to the extent that was ever possible. If this is the way we spend our time today, I wonder what or how we will be ‘living’ tomorrow.

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