What is the influence of Second Life on the real life of the users?
Second life can have both good and bad influence on the users. All depends on the users themselves, their intentions, priorities, mental strength etc.
Positive influence:
Negative influence:
In February 2006 the Dutch TV (Ned. 3) presented the documentary “In the future everybody can make their dreams come true.” (orig. “In de toekomst kan iedereen zijn dromen verwezenlijken”). Few of the active users of SL tell their stories of how their life has changed since they started to live in the virtual world. One of the girls comes from very strict and conservative family. In SL she can be wild, free of moral borders and judgment of her parents. She has perfect look, many friends, and great worries free life.
She sleeps only 3 hours a day and leaves the house only to go to work… Also Dutch couple is presented in this documentary. They are married and spend every evening in one room, everybody behind ones own computer, chatting to their virtual boyfriends and girlfriends. It’s clear how negative influence the game has on their relationship.
You can see the documentary on:
[1]
Some quotations of users found on blogs and forums:
“… lot of people take SL as an opportunity to try playing things that they would never, ever do, or be able to do, in the Real. And no matter what anyone tells you, doing something in SL does not mean you automatically want to do it in RL.”
[2]