Is Second Life a means of escape?

Hello all!

I have to write a paper for a class (http://trumpy.cs.elon.edu/metaverse/) comparing the Metaverse in the book Snow Crash to Second Life (in the real world).

Do you think that Second Life provides a means of escape for its residents?

Is Second Life a means of escape for you personally?

I would love to see your comments and thoughts!

Thanks so much,

Aurelia

All entertainments are escapes of some sort.

For me, SL is much like a friendly corner bar or cafe, where I know and care about the regulars but don't have to leave my RL child abed unattended in order to visit with them.

Perhaps more importantly, SL allows this environment with the additional freedom of being able to find like-minded friends without the limitations of real geography.

There some good articles on (online) gaming addictions, just google something and you'll find a few good ones.

For me, it's not necessarily an escape, but an opportunity to do things that I can't do in real life.

I spend most of my time in game building. I can't build a house in real life, but I can in game. Don't like the colour of the wall? Spend 4 days repainting, or a couple of seconds and a couple of clicks it's sorted.

I've formed a number of good friendships in the game, and much of my gameplay is merely a 'virtual' version of reality - I don't pretend to be something I'm not. Whilst I do appreciate the skills of many of the people who have created wierd and wonderful things within game, my motto is that there is also beauty in the mundane.

Last night, for example, I spent about half an hour making a washing machine. I took photographs of my real washing machine, photoshopped and tweaked them, then adding a rotation script on a cylinder I now have a realistic looking washing machine, with clothes that go round and round. It may not be very exciting, or particularly impressive as far as some things in game go - but to me, the fact that I figured out *how* to do it, and was able to implement that plan, I found quite an achievement to me personally.

I also have a microwave and a fridge, both also from my first life. As I took the photos last night, then put on the washing machine (as, of course, it had a load in it). So, whilst this laundry was being done in First life, in a virtual mirror in Second Life the same thing, at least visually, was happening.

Lewis

I'd have to agree with Lewis and Introvert..

IRL I'm a bookkeeper, in SL I'm a texturer. Complete opposites

SL does give ppl the means to do things they cannot do in real life because of.. well.. RL constraints of all sorts. So if that is escapism.. so be it

My € 0.02

Yes



Yes


...
All that we see or seem
is but a dream within a dream.
(Edgar Allan Poe)

Second Life started out as an escape for me. It was a magical world where anything is possible and it was populated with fictional characters and was all fun.

Lately for me, Second Life and First Life are starting to blur together, and I don't know how long I will be able to keep them separate. The people aren't fictional, they're real, they have RL names, they have chatted with me in Skype and on the phone. I find myself developing genuine RL feelings for some of these people, and genuine fears from others.

Second Life feels less like a magical world and more like a utillity. I find that it's constantly inching away from the "game" section in my mind and closer to products like Photoshop, Maya, or MSN.

second life is an escape till you need to escape from second life and recognize you have a first life still, dream of the future and learn from it to help now,but you still have to live now

Second Life are an extension to my IRL. It ads a bit more to the IRL...

I feel the same Aimee

Interesting topic. As Aimee said, it's not exactly an escape from first life, because the people in Second Life are absolutely real, and so the dynamics are almost the same. In fact, in this and in other online games (like TSO), you can get to know people in unusually intimate ways, precisely because they are NOT in your daily real world life. You see into their souls more easily, is how I've always thought of it, unencumbered by the physical and geographical things that typically cause people to segregate out into groups.

Thus, you can have important relationships with friends of all ages and social strata, from literally around the world. This is incredibly freeing, and adds a wonderful dimension to your regular old First Life, where you are not likely to have a good friend you see every day who actually lives in Sweden, when you live in the U.S. This is not so much of an escape, though, as it is an expansion of your real life.

Like Lewis, I, too, celebrate the whimsy of the mundane, and I enjoy moving around whole floors of houses with the touch of a finger. (Man, I'm strong!) Since I enjoy working in SL, it is actually not as much of an escape than a hobby. It's not at all like Anarchy Online, where I escaped to battle huge villains. It's more like scrapbooking, where I escape to enjoy playing with colors and shapes and making creative statement.

But at the same time, it is an ongoing flash mob party, and you never know when that will occur. There you are, working at your online creative hobby, but you aren't doing it alone in your own home. Friends come by! Pretty soon you may be at the bottom of a riverbed, shooting each other with popguns, wrangling sharks, and dressing up as rabbits and dinosaurs.

Now that is an escape.

coco

Dittoing Aimee and Martin. In fact, I am finding the need to escape from SL, more and more, these days.

Yes and Yes.

Briana Dawson

SL - my peace and quiet after chasing a toddler all day

Yes.

No.

Escapisim has such negative social connotations. When I think of the term, my mind brings up the action films of the 80's. Not a lot of thought put in and not a lot of thought taken out. Anything that promotes a person to be creative and physically make something be it buildings, clothes, animations, and what not is not in the same league as mindlessly sitting infront of the tele.

I do not understand the desire to call things escapisim. As if everyone's life is oh so mundane that they always are escaping from it. People like to do what they like. Whether they have a happy 1st life or not. Is sitting around and having a chat with a friend escapisim? Why is doing the same online have such negativity towards it?

Personally I enjoy my 1st life job, going round to the pub for drinks, going to the cinema, reading a good book, and doing other random things. I also enjoy animating for secondlife, chatting with friends, wandering about seeing other's creations. Then other times I like running around killing things in MMORPGS. Personally the only thing I see with these activities is that they are what I choose to do with my time because I enjoy it, not because of any issues that I may have.

Second Life does allow me a certain degree of escape, absolutely. I can do much more creatively with this toolset than anything else I can think of. I've always loved that.

At the same time, though, I find a lot I learn in SL can be applied to my everyday life. It can be an awesome business sandbox in addition to a creative release.

If escape is doing something you like then apperently everyone "escapes" when they listen to a song on the radio? Or read a book they like? Going out to eat with friends? Is that escaping? If doing something you enjoy is a form of escape then I suppose real life is all about escape. And if we do anything we like or enjoy then it's a bad thing because that is "escapeing"
Is sex escape?
If I put all that together then it begins to look like real life to me.

I don't see it so much as an escape, for me, as I do an outlet.

SL isn't a very good means of escape, because the job recaptures me on Monday.

Second life gives you the chance to be completely opposite of what you are in RL.
ITs a means of entertaiment and doing things that are impoosible in RL.

I come to SL to braoaden my horizens, escape my problems irl, and jsut enjoy myself. There's already too much drama at school, why would i need it in sl? Jus gotta have phun!

No and no. Much like a lot of popular entertainment, SL is an illusion of escape. It is the coloring book and purple crayon that is given to the mental patient to distract him from his confinement.

"In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's Cosa Nostra Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. " --Stephenson

To paraphrase Stephenson: in reality, I am a grad student, but in the 'metaverse' (insofar as SL is a metaverse) I am a robotics designer, aeronautics engineer, and reasonably successful businessman. I am also blessed with a number of good friends in SL. I don't consider SL an escape as such because I very much love and enjoy my first life; rather, SL is a great extension of RL allowing me, like Enabran, to do, learn, and experiment in ways I can't elsewhere.

Good luck with your paper!

This is an important point, one that has needed to be made over and over again for every new interactive system that let people carry on conversations without being physically present, back as far as I can recall... and probably all the way back to Sumer and Ur. I can imagine some bronze-age equivalent of a griefer vandalizing a stele because it wasn't real.

It's not only a party line, only a bulletin board, only a chat system, only Usenet, only a forum, only a game... how it works doesn't matter... the software and hardware doesn't matter... inthe end you're still interacting with people. It's no more or less an escape than getting together with your buddies at the Temple of Athena/Forum/Village Square/Tavern/Pub/Poetry Reading/Guild hall/Club/...