Virtual Reality or Real Life Online?

I've always considered SL primarily as a platform for innovation, creativity and interaction. It can be leveraged to create a virtual life, but also to test the first steps of an interactive 3D Web where companies can try new ways to engage with their customers and where individuals can better express their creativity, divulge their views, interact etc. It is only natural that the trend is leaning towards the latter, but only because early adopters were mostly...secondlifers - gamers, roleplayers, chatters etc. Both ends coexist on the web, no reason why they cannot in SL or in a future 3D Interactive Web - where SL would be one of the browsers, not the data hog.

Hmmm...guess I could have just said...Option 3.

I am looking for musical talent.

Mind you .. not today since IT WON'T LET ME POST EVENTS rant rant rant.

Sorry!

Colette these are excellent questions.

In my personal view, this is the one fundamental philosophical disagreement that divides SL's community bewteen (1) people who want a "Second Life" apart from their first life and (2) people who want an "extension" of their first life using the medium of SL. I realize some people combine elements of both of these positions, but generally peope *do* lean one way or the other predominantly.

I am a category (1) person, like you. SL to me is a chance to do something different from my RL. I find my RL quite fulfilling and engaging, and so I feel no need to extend it into SL. By the same token, I like using SL to experience things I wouldn't normally in RL, and certainly to meet people I wouldn't normally meet in RL. I therefore keep my RL and my SL separate. My closest in-world connections have my SL-related email address, and I correspond sometimes with them by that, but that's as far as it extends into my RL. I do not want my SL experiences entering my RL and messing it up, or. conversely, my RL realities entering my SL and messing *that* up. Each of them does quite fine on its own, thank you.

However, it seems as clear as a beautiful autumn sky that the almost overwhelming trend within SL is to move it towards "First Life ver. 1.1" and away from "Second Life", following the trend of the proliferation of the websites you mention, among others, and how this has led to people plastering their personal lives and information all over the internet. The "Facebook culture" is a powerful one -- it is a paradigm that enables people to use the internet to reach out to others in a way that impacts their RLs, whether its Facebook or My Space or personal video diaries on YouTube or what have you. It's a huge web-wide trend, and it certainly is having an impact on SL. In fact, LL is actively aiding and abetting this impact, by adding features such as voice communication (something that pierces the divide between SL and RL rather thoroughly), identity verification (again, joining the two together more closely) and reaching out to RL corporations and other institutions to establish in-world presences (all of which are, by definition, an extension of RL, because these entities have no interest in having an alternative "Second Life".

It goes almost entirely against the founding ideas of SL (the idea, according to Philip, was to create "another country", not an extension of the existing world), but there it is. There are some of us who will resist it, and we will continue to exist in pockets. But the MySpace and Facebook people who want SL to be an eHarmony with pixellated graphics are the tidal wave trend, and LL clearly wants to be riding that wave, regardless of what we think.

What happens in RL stays in RL.

Unless YOU choose differently.

Yes Victorria is right. And when that wave finally becomes impossible to resist, I will pack my bags, look back fondly and say Goodbye to my Second Life, with no regrets.

Now if you could only convince everyone else.

Well I think blah blah blah...

Glad you felt comfortable sharing with us 2K.

My existence is rooted in SL. I employ an agent to sit at a computer in RL and give me things to do. Simple as that!

Agree completely, except that I will regret losing SL and what it could have been.

My intention when I came to SL was to keep it completely separate from RL. There are now 2 or 3 people who know my RL first name, 2 more who probably know enough to actually find me quite easily if they wanted to, and 1 who knows RL name, address, phone number, etc.. The reasons I've given out that info don't matter, (except that I expect to meet all 3 who know the most, and I think they have the right to that info for their own security) the important thing is that with each of those people it was a free choice on my part, I know the same about them, and there were reasons for sharing. Nothing was shared until there had been time to build up trust and friendship.

I take a similar approach to RL info as I do to voice. I use voice, although not a lot except with one person. I don't think there should be any expectation that someone will use it, and I almost never respond to people speaking in voice unless I know them fairly well. I treat RL info as something that should be completely under the control of the person. I don't think I have ever asked someone's RL name or age, and only asked which country they where in if it was relevant to the conversation. And never taken offence at info being withheld. In fact if someone declines to give out info, at least you know they're not lying about it.

If I ever felt it was expected that RL info, even just a/s/l, would be shared or made publicly available I would be out.

For me, personally, I chose option #1. There is nobody in SL that knows my RL name, or any specifically identifying information about me. Not even my SL partner of nearly a year. Nor do I know such information about her.

However, that being said, I am a horrible role player and a lousy actor so, in terms of my AV, what you see is what you get. It is me at the keyboard and what I say and do really is what I would say or do in RL. Well, obviously, I can't fly in RL .

How much RL info others choose to reveal is, in my opinion, entirely up to them and I won't attempt to debate whether they have a "right" to ask me about my RL. But, I never give RL photos of myself, I never reveal anything more than a general geographic location and I never voice chat with anybody, not even my closest SL friends.

But, the beauty of SL is that, it can be whatever you chose to make of it. It you don't wish to use it as another MySpace or eHarmony, then there are plenty of things to do and places to go that don't rely on that type of info. OTOH, if you choose to use SL in that way, and I do know many people that do, then knock your socks off. I hope it works for you and you don't get burned in RL.

I will admit to having mixed feelings about business use of SL. Last thing I want to see is the place turned into one big non-stop advertisment for RL products. But I can also see the very valid uses for creative marketing and the ability to connect people to RL goods and services. I just hope that it really is used creatively and that a middle ground is found.

And the potential for using SL in the tourism trade is nothing short of amazing. Just visit Mexico's Chichen Itsa (sp?) sim to see what I mean.

So, while I chose option #1, I can certainly see option #3 as the way to go. But if it becomes #2, I'm outta here and not looking back.

I get a feeling like that too - nostalgia.

SL in 2005 seemed to be heading in a different direction than it is now.

We never worried about it becoming a 3d Myspace, Face Book or Eharmony.

Now I am pretty sure for some it will be. Hopefully things stay sane enough that those things are not in any way a dominant part of what makes up SL.

I guess I would quibble a bit with the poll, in the following way.

I don't think that there are many people who are entirely 100% someone else all the time when they are in SL. Even if they are RPing or acting, just as with a good RPer or actor, their RL selves bleed in and are deployed for this or that reason in their projected "persona". So I don't think there are many people who are "completely someone else" in SL.

The issue this raises with the poll is how the repsondents are characterizing and distinguishing between (1) and (3). It appears choice (1) is being intepreted in a very narrow way in favor of choice (3), because most people would be willing to admit that with some people (even if it is only a handlful) some RL information is shared and known -- I realize that there are exceptions to this, but I think it is common for people to have perhaps 1 or 2 people who know more about the RL them than everyone else does. I would think that the real distinction to be made is not between a "hardcore virtualist" (which is how I see choice "1" being interpreted here) and choice "3", but between "2" and a blending of "1" and "3". For me, for example, I really *do* see SL as a virtual world, but nevertheless there are 2 people who know quite a bit about the RL me -- I don't think that makes me a "3", but the various ways that the poll is being interpreted seem to be skewing the results a bit because anyone who is disclosing any RL information to anyone, however limited, seems to be leaning towards "3", which I don't think is what "3" was trying to get at, but I could be wrong.

I really hope this whole Myspace/Facebook thing is a passing fashion rather than a long term trend.

Sadly I think it is inexorably bound up in this rather bizarre desire to stand out and be a celebrity. Warhol was correct except that now with all the dreadful parade of reality shows et al, it is down to 10 minutes….

I voted for the 3rd option. Some RL details I chose to share with my close friends, but I have a RL which stands alone just fine. I feel no need to extend it here.

Finora is my alter ego (She is as it happens more daring and outgoing than I tend to be). She will quickly ignore people who want to drag their RL baggage out on display or wish to force her to become more real than the database entries she comprises.

The consequence of that is I do not seek relationships in SL because I would likely not be able to ultimately satisfy the demands of such a relationship. Nor would it be fair to whatever eHarmony seeking person ended up investing real feelings in me.

I come to Second Life to get away, at least for a time, from First Life. It is an escape and as such I really don't want the intrusion of the cacophony of First Life.

My First life is my First Life and that is where it stays. When I am in-world the other world ceases to exist. Start asking me questions about it and you'll likely get a very terse answer and a mute. Of course there are a few exceptions to that, but I've known the very, very few privileged people ever since I've been in Second Life.

As Second Life becomes increasingly like First Life, then the reasons for coming here become less and less. I can very easily use my entertainment budget in First Life again, but I'd rather not.

The poll doesnt mean much - so its okay.

More just interested in general thoughts. I think its skewed becuase I dont think the Myspacers - who tend to be younger - will be heavily respresented on a "boring" forum like this.

Lol, u got pics?

I picked option #3 simply because I play and live on SL with my RL husband, so we tend to sometimes talk about RL things while we're on there. But we also try to stay immersed in SL in that we speak to each other only "inworld" when we are inworld....adds to the fantasy of our characters, although Sunni is very much like me in personality. I'm not a different type of person in SL as I am in RL, Ijust look very different. I never had any intention of making my avie look like me, and if that ever is something that becomes the norm, I won't participate in that. I have no problem telling someone that I'm 42 and I live in Pennsylvania, I'm married with 2 children, and, yes, I'm really in a female in RL....<smiles> That's it....that's as far as my information sharing will go. There's nothing else anyone needs to know about me, unless we become close enough to share more specific details. I once had a profile on Yahoo, and it's through yahoo chat that I met my husband, but even those details were very sketchy until I got to know him much better. I even refused to give him my phone number until after I had his, and I called him. It's not safe to share those details unless you really feel like you can trust someone 100%, as as another poster said, most times that is based on a "gut" feeling. I think I'm pretty intuitive when it comes to people, and if you talk to someone long enough, you can usually at least get some idea as to whether or not they're lying or worse. So, whether or not to share RL information is up to each individual, but I tend not to ask for specific detailed information about someone, and won't share it with them.

I think you're right about that.

It's interesting to me that there's a definite tension between 1 and 3, and I've seen this in my group as well. The crowd who insist SL and RL must be separate, and are offended if anyone starts bringing up/talking about RL, versus the mixers, who will tell you some RL if the situation is right or if it furthers their work here in SL.

Etiquette creates cultures and it seems this means there are at least two cultures involved. I'm always surprised when someone gets offended if the group starts discussing RL, even if in a very vague general kind of way. I've even seen people leave my group meeting in a huff because someone started talking a lot about their RL. Generally though, the consensus in my group is for 3, with 2 strongly rejected.

I'd like to know if the split falls somewhat along the line of married vs. single, with the married players more interested in 1 and the single players more interested in 3, keeping their options open as it were. I'd also like to know how the choice is affected by age.

The rejection of 2 is a side effect of the way people develop trust in online relationships, when socializing is the goal, as opposed to a meat market atmosphere.

The Lindens' informal mouthpieces seem to make a lot of noise about immersionists and augmentists but I think it's the wrong distinction. I know a lot of Gorean roleplayers who will tell me bits of their RL, OOC. Part of it is that I don't repeat things, part of it is that OOC is just that. Out-of-character. A roleplayer who brings in some RL during OOC would be in group 3.

Thanks Colette for starting this fascinating thread.

I wonder if SL became largely like Myspace and face book - and those with very private sides felt uncomfortable would they largely leave?

The pressure to reveal real life information is practically non existance in MMORPGs for example.

Theres no denying myspece eharmony youtube, etc is a definite trend in online "lives"

Myspace for example has far more regular users than SL.

I wonder how many SL will get vs. Kaneva. The latter is essentially myspace in 3D with avatars. (Which is why it annoys me so much, lol.) So far it's still beta-ish though.

With all the marketing LL does to educators and techy arty types I can easily see SL becoming a kind of high-end gated bohemia, a kind of virtual Greenwich Village (as it once was), which would then tend to progress in a like attracts like kind of way.

Possibly in the future, when virtual worlds are more advanced and distributed, and it's possible to move an avatar between them, "Second Life" will still exist as the brand name of a particular type of lifestyle.

Possibly. It's also possible that SL is/will be big enough for both models to coexist, such that people who do not want a MySpace in 3D experience will be able to exist in parts of SL with like-minded residents. My guess is that the Lindens are hoping this happens, rather than an exodus of folks who mind their privacy.



Yes, I take it this is the case. I havent spent much time in them, but my ex-H has, and he tells me that noone in his "guild" knows much about anyone else in RL, or cares. I suppose the difference is that MMORPGs are approached clearly as games, whereas SL is approached in so many different ways, and often as a social outlet as much as it is anything else.



There always was the potential for use of the internet to stretch out one's personal networking. What has been interesting for me personally, however, has been the sea change in "comfort level" people have with sharing themselves on the internet. I'm just not very comfortable with that, and I suppose I never will be .. but I am a very private person also in RL, so I suppose that just carries over onto the internet. I do think that the attraction of MySpace et al has something to do with the 5 minutes of fame concept, but it goes deeper than that ... I think there are many people who are to some degree alienated from others at this historical moment, and these kinds of networking sites allow people to reach out to others using the internet from what might be a place of alienation for them. I suppose that this is a significant part of the attraction for many of the heavier users of those kind of sites.

SL, as it currently stands, would never be as attractive as those sites because it is more "gamey", on the one hand, and, on the other, has a significant learning curve. Those of us who have been around SL for a while (which includes me .. my first AV is an account that is now deact was here in 2004/2005) tend to forget that SL is not all that intuitive for a new user, and of course this puts people off as well. It can seem incredibly geeky and incredibly slanted towards programmers, which a lot of people find off-putting if they are not techie geeks themselves. So unless SL gets a lot more intuitive, I don't see it taking off like MySpace or Facebook.

I just want the LSL code to transfer RL to SL

~Jessy

SL can maintain that duality IF Linden allows it. It seems the Real Life part is the one that is attractive to Corporations, advertisers and others with many Quatloos. They can exert enough influence where The providers can decide to point Second Life in that direction and abandon the Fantasy people.

Yes I very much agree with this. To me it is clear that LL wants to attract these RL entities, and the RL entities like corps and universities and research institutions and the like are not interested in having a fantasy "second life", of course, so it seems clear that this LL encouraged trend will skew at least parts of the grid more towards RL Part Deux, and very much by design and with the encouragement of LL. It's possible, still, given the size of the grid and its growth rate, that there may be substantial areas of it that are not really tainted by these developments to a significant degree ... but the wildcard in that is whether LL institutes other measures to tip the scale even further. An expanded verification regime could do this, for example, and have a broader impact than simply having a PepsiCo island sim. It's these kind of grid-wide measures that are more concerning to me, because they have the most potential for SL-wide changes, and LL is well aware of that.