View source for 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.<br>
'''Positive influence:'''
<li>SL become a source of side or even full income for some of the users. With the services they provide, real life money are earned.</li>
<li>Some of the users overcome the physical and psychological limitations. Think of people who are mute, paralyzed or have mobility difficulties. They can freely walk or even fly around, have easy conversation with many people.</li>

'''Negative influence:'''
<li>Addiction. At one point the “Second Life” can become the first life. People neglect sleeping, eating, working. They loose contact with their families, real life friends.</li>
<li>Bankruptcy. Second Life is not for free. You need resources for your life improvement. People spend hundreds of dollars on cloths, ground, houses, just like in the real life. They gamble, invest.</li>

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. <br>
You can see the documentary on: <br>
[http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/tv/vpro/detoekomst/bb.20060227.asf]<br><br>  

Some quotations of users found on blogs and forums:<br>
''“… 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.”''<BR>
[http://www.slprofiles.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=177]