Would addiction to SL make you better or worse off?

Philip Linden sez:



I used to hang out with people who were quite literally addicted to chess. Quite often their social relationships and career aspirations often suffered for it.

I'd like to think that spending too much time in SL could be a positive thing, but it's entertainment focus right now makes me believe that it would qualify as an addiction.

What about people who are addicted to making negative threads all the time?

How is this negative?

Your statement is actually kind of ironic (because it's coming from you). You may want to do a quick review of all your posts.

My point being is that SL is not formulated in a way right now that we are necessarily bettering our lives by spending significant amounts of time in it, while I think Philip is under the impression that it is.

I especially find it interested because he has been quoted to say "entertainment is the killer app" for SecondLife.

Thus he equates, roughly, being entertained all the time as a good thing.

I find that to be a fascinating disconnect. I don't think being entertained all the time is a good thing.

If he thought that collaboration or education or commerce was the killer app for SL, then I would say yes - spending lots of time in SL *is* a good thing, at least under the vision of Philip.

I didn't say posts, I said threads. I very, very rarely start threads, let alone try to portray myself as the absolute authority on every subject that meanders through my head. You are usually fishing for reactions in your *woe is SL* threads. If you don't like the fact that you get some negative responses to your gloom and doom suppositions, you know how to fix it.

"it's entertainment focus right now makes me believe that it would qualify as an addiction."

The above line is a somewhat negative opinion, although I wasn't specifically referring to this thread. If we are not "bettering our lives" how is that a positive? Personally I have bettered my life. I learned PSP, PS, the SL toolset, and have met a plethora of good people, some even in RL.

get a room guys

Yes, Nolan, I have a nice one rented. It's very romantic. Just let me know!

I am sorry, I hate going around in circles for weeks about issues, neither is probably going to convert the other's beliefs, so I will let it go.

Second Life is not focused on entertainment, though it may be a major part of it. The entertainment value of an idea that someone has expressed in Second Life may draw people to it. Some may find the draw of these entertaining ideas to be addicting. There will always be those who become addicted to a certain stimulus. For some that may be entertainment in Second Life.


Second Life is a new platform for information exchange.
Take a book for instance:

The author wrote the words from his mind on a page, and then sold them to a publisher. He recieves information in the form of payment for his book. The publisher sells the book to a reseller and the book eventually reaches you when you purchase it at the book store. You have exchanged your concept of money which the author accepts for the book in your hand.

Maybe the goal was that you read the book.

When you read the book the light from the page strikes the page and reflects into your eyes where your brain takes the information and interprets it into images you understand as words on a page. The exchange is completed with the author's satisfaction that someone has read their work.

Why Second Life, if you can just use books? Why TV if you have books? Why Books if you have the spoken word?

It's all about exchanging ideas and information in the most efficient way. When you watch a television program the physical appearance of this idea is transmitted to you with fewer distortions than by other means. Why books if television is more accurate? How much information can you exchange through television? Quite a bit, but is it always the most efficient? That is not always the case! So, every form of exchange has its own "sweet spot" and some ammount of overlap. When you are in the actual physical presence of the originator of an idea, they may not always be able to express that idea due to the limitations placed on them by reality. Nobody can leap tall buildings in a single bound, but super man does it all the time in television/movies/comics/books. When someone had the idea of a man from another planet with super powers that exists in a city strikingly similar to a certatain major city in the United Staes, he wished to express this in a way that was understandable to people. Though the comic book superman became real.

In Second Life it's not just a single means of communication but a mash of all of them put together, and this makes it possible to exchange ideas in a far more efficent manner than would normally be possible through traditional means. Those who could not be together physically to share their ideas, who need more than any chat IM can provide, can meet in Second Life and share their ideas. As techonogy progresses Second Life becomes less and less like virtual reality. Reality is not about the physical. Reality is real when you accept it as such, and thus Second Life is real to me. I am not addicted to Second Life. It's a tool that I can use in my life, the only life I have, to express my views, opinions, thoughts, and ideas. To share them with others and allow them to share theirs with me. I use these forums becuse they are the most effient means of sharing my ideas with those interested in this thread. It was not a waste of my time to share these ideas, and i'm better off for it, because I have the satisfaction of knowing someone may read them.

I have no idea what all of this I just said means to you, as I can hardly make heads or tails of it myself, but if you have any questions please respond here or send me an IM in Second Life.

The more I read these forums the more I get the feeling that we're all being kinda used,the more I get the feeling that we're all paying to be beta testers.

Think about it.

There IS no point to Second Life as it is, unless your Anshe Chung,BUT. Whats going to happen to all those clothing stores once someone opens a store in SL selling REAL items?Whats going to happen to your pretend cars once someone opens a REAL car showroom?

Think about it.

Why would you give someone $8.000000 to develop a 'game'?Sooner or later every single one of us is going to become redundant in Second Life because the world you now use is being geared up for bigger things - and we aint included.

Something just doesnt add up about recent changes,something isnt right.

Think about it.

You cant drive a real car in Second Life..

there's already plenty of real clothes stores and real car show rooms. all it takes is turning your chair around and walking out your door into the real world. SL business is still going strong. i dunno why anybody would see real products as competition against SL products. hmmmm pretend car for L$500 or real car for $20,000. hmm........ i can only buy one or the other since they have the exact same use......

As long as I empty the bucket here once a day I am fine. I am going to have to do something about all the pizza boxes soon though.

Buster

LOL! Don't knock over your chamberpot!

Great post with great insights Baba!

GREAT forsight there Einstein - now go away and think about it for longer than 15 seconds.

CLUE - all it takes is turning your chair around and walking out your door into the real world.

If you had it all in ONE place at the touch of a mouse you would'nt NEED to do that now would you?

lets not compare red apples to green apples! thats apox L$5,500,000 (including fees)


Added:



Who buys shit they are not going to use? If i'm a lazy slob who never goes outside, tell me why I need to buy designer clothing in Second Life? Please think about that for a while. They are two different markets, both of wich Second Life could support.

This is your brain on paranoia.

I think Sox makes a very very good point. Jarod has made a similar one, as well as a number of other people in these forums.

The one thing I'd disagree with is -- is it an experiment for Philip / Cory / Robin? No.

Is it an experiment for Benchmark, Pierre, and Mitch? In other words, is it an experiment for the money people?

You betcha. If you think otherwise than you have yet to experience VC hell.

Will Second Life commercialize? YES YES YES YES ... How does that hurt Second Life or our place in it? So we are not all big dogs anymore.. How big are you really?

Who will get rich on Second Life? Who will just be a user forever? Does it matter? I sure as hell dont care if Anshe becomes queen of the universe.. She's not a bad person ;0

As for me? I'm probably just a user no matter what happens... I express my thoughts through Second Life and other means, and maybe I find my niche. I'll be glad when I can go to Pepsi land and Nike world too.. That doesnt mean there wont be a Second Life goatse.cx though.. Because its just the internet+++++

BINGO!

Second Life is actually touted as being something it isnt. Have you never actually stepped back and wondered why LL will not come out and say just exactly what SL is all about? Maybe they wont say what it's all about because all their paying beta testers would up and get the hell out of dodge.

No WAY in hell would someone invest eight million dollars in a game because as SL stand right now it wouold take 4000 years for them to make any money.That money was invested with a view to making this framework a viable way of selling REAL products and you know what I think? I think your looking at virtual shopping and nothing more and I think were all paying to actually test something that,if it works,is going to make someone very rich.

There will be no place here for fantasy once that happens.

It's not the activity, it's the person. The question you can ask yourself is..."what would you be doing if you were not addicted to SL?".

Since I started playing SL, I have ramped up my Photoshop skills from beginner to near professional levels, I have written articles, I learned a little scripting, I created a web site, I have made some very close friends, and I have made some RL money. All this in my free time.

Without SL I might have been sitting around on the couch watching Law and Order re-runs for the last year. Or, maybe I would have focused on curing cancer. I think the reality is somewhere in between. We all have our proclivities, and they are always going to emerge SOMEWHERE. Were it not for SL I suspect I would have engaged in a different but equal activity.

I'm more creative now, and healthier (I dropped nearly 80 pounds since I started - working out, etc..) than I was a year ago. I'm glad I met who I have, and I don't even watch TV anymore....there really is no point, except for some humorous series I catch now and then. Why have ads and such, when you can login and *create*....it just tickles my brain to think-then-actualize. Its part of my 'addiction' to SL, no doubt.

Ah, yes...the EVIL commercial empire that tramples on all freedom of expression...fantasy will *totally* disappear when people start trying to make money...I mean, no creative efforts have *ever* flourished in a commercial market...We're all headed for the universe of THX 1138 once Burger King starts putting billboards up in SL.

Please. It's not an advertisment's fault if a person's creativity shrivels...the person (just perhaps) needs to take responsibility for their own imagination. There's a hell of a lot more to SL than buying and selling. There's creating buildings, worlds, people...additudes. Expression in SL is much more expansive than people give it credit for.

So I'll look at the Burger King billboards, and think about if I really want a Whopper or not....then go back to having fun with my friends as the angel/bunnygirl/genie/ninja that I can't get to play in Real Life. "No place here for fantasy".....FEH!

No there isnt, and if you actually beleive that then your delluding yourself.But thats a case of the pot calling the kettle black because I've been delluding myself too.

Really depends on your take on the matter. The way I see it, content creators and entrepreneurs are typically better off - both because it gives them an opportunity to test startup company appeal as it allows them to build skills, resume material, and even a side income. Additionally, Second Life is a creative vent to them - and even when you take out the factor of "money-making" from the equation, I still see them better off as having a chance to create in a multiuser environment.

Conversely, consumers can vary drastically, to the point I cannot personally make a value judgment there. By "consumer," I mean both users that buy objects within Second Life in L$ as I mean consumers to Linden Labs, the GOM, IGE, HankRamos.com, AnsheChung.com, and still others, that buy Lindens with real dollars. I measure that as a degree of consumption, and the litmus test fails there.

For example, I would consider people that buy and sell Lindens both as consumers and speculators - so this multifacetted nature makes it difficult to make a statement about. By contrast, I would warn anyone that spends a large percentage of their income into Second Life without a monetary return. Typically this can turn ugly.

Finally, "addiction" can exist as a subset of Second Life, as opposed to SL itself. For example, gambling is considered an "addiction" by many people, and by virtue of Second Life being a venu for a gambling niche, you could draw out that they are also addicted to Second Life. QED.

So, again, it's a tough call in general.