The Digital World... Are we as human beings not good enough?

The first time I first took a look into the controversial virtual world of Second Life I was within my education environment at University. I never really took an interest or took the time to educate myself in what was supposed to be the latest craze in reality technology. My first opinions when looking through Second Life was ‘who has the time to sit at a computer for hours on end and talk to people they don’t even know within a virtual reality game’. Listening through my tutorial I began to realise that this was not just a game as I first thought however was another life for some, a life where people can pretend to be someone they are not.

For those who don’t know or have never heard of Second Life it is a virtual place where you first make up your own character, you can choose hair colour, eye colour, breast size and weight – making yourself as perfect or imperfected as you like. Then you venture within the virtual world were you meet new friends can buy property, clothes, marry and even buy sex toys. The Second world is not shy and your Second Life character can do and try everything we can in the real world
Steven Meadows the author of the famous book called “I, Avatar, The Culture and Consequences of having a Second Life” has said that “the suspension of disbelief has become a grounding of belief” in my opinion this is partially true. These virtual experiences help some to believe in a better world and therefore there becomes a feeling of belief through these virtual characters. However this also brings up the question of “isn’t the real world good enough”, “why do some feel they need to escape”, and “are we as human beings not enough”?

Within the virtual world of Second Life, people on the others side of the screen can create a character unlike them, people can be what they have always wanted and will not get judged within the screen where as they may get judged outside of the screen. Does Second Life enhance self esteem or give a false promise of reality?. In a way yes Second Life is a false sense of reality these perfectly constructed characters are not real and are far from human beings. Reeves and Nass argue that “People respond to technology on social and emotional levels much more than we ever thought” (cited meadows 2008), should we be worried about these digital addicts? Are we losing a sense of realism within the world? This statement places Second Life on a much higher level in society then I thought. People who are involved within Second Life are emotional about their characters and get extremely involved however is this a good thing?

Are human beings becoming too attached to their Avatar? Is getting emotional about a virtual world taking it a step too far? Or are we as human beings striving for something better something more than the real world?