Moving On - Thoughts From a Former SL Addict

It's hard to put numbers on it, but I'd say that's a good, healthy amount of time. I may be prejudiced, as that's about my daily average, going over on some days (such as a machima filming) and under/not at all others (when busy in RL).

That said, I think the human psyche can only stand so many hours a day staring at a computer screen. I don't own a television, and I don't watch many movies or play other involved computer games. So, SL is my "screen time", for the most part.

Nothing we do in modern life is natural anymore so might as well make it good!

I hear ya, I have been "in" SL the majority of my waking hours (which have increased DRAMATICALLY since I joined), from the start. I actaully joined about 2 months before my SL Birthdate...I wanted to change "surnames"; had ta start a new account & cancel the old one.

I joined SL right after a big, bad turning point in my life where I felt like I needed ta "quarantine" myself for a while...like a lotta Residents who spend the most time in-world I got multiple diagnosed mental issues; Manic Depression, Anxiety Disorder & Psychosis...& no I ain't scared to admit none of em, nobody's perfect & this ain't a job interview *shrug*

I have known folks who "fell in love" w/ other SL Residents too...but take inta consideration how much body-language, & other things ya DON'T really know about the other person, are gonna matter after you get together IN PERSON every day.

I can think of one long-term SL relationship that ended in the man gettin locked up by the FBI for child pornography (non-SL), and this had been a dam well-known "couple" of partners. I doubt his partner knew anything about that tendency in him, he knew a LOTTA folks, & none of us got the "vibe" from him.

If ya ask me, the more advanced technology like SL gets...the more addiction folks are gonna have ta handle.

If ya can resist drinkin yourself out of a job, you can probably apply that same thought process to SL. Addiction is the right word, even though the "world" might be hexidecimal...we ain't...& neither are our reactionsas humans. The better it this kinda technology gets, the more we, and future users, are gonna have "VR addiction, withdrawal", etc,etc...

This is a..."life imitates art" (sci-fi in the past) situation...kinda like how I compare modern cell phones ta fictional, futuristic Star Trek communicators.
If you ever read the book "1984", ya know just what I mean

Just gotta do everything in moderation *shrugs*

Hstath Sadrana oustia welto, igth tobas lowsbane.

True I have 3 TV's and other than to watch a few favotie shows, which I have recordeed then watch later so as to not waste time with advertising, I rarely use them, sometimes to watch a DVD I suppose, I do need a break from SL occassionally, I have one TV next to the computer monitor, but I rarely ever turn it on.

I'm pretty unsatisfied with RL too, but keep family in the loop, I have a dog that reminds me to eat occasionally. Yes I need to see my friends more but I find the building creation so addictive I suppose and socialising better then I could ever do with my physical being.

I'm not silly enough to fall inlove online though unless I found that person was in RL reach and then I may use SL as a medium to meet people in my area I suppose, though love tends to blindside you, and sounds like the best excuse I could think of to visit another country if it looked serious.

I am not young, and would look forward to a futurama heads in jars type existance eventually if it were plugged into SL

Truly this story made me want to cry.

I've made sacrifices in RL to help people in SL and sometimes I think I've gone too far and been foolish. I want to get my balance back, but the core of my RL is still in decent shape and things are fixable.

It may well be that Joe needs something for his spirit that his current setup in RL cannot give him, and that he will have to sacrifice to get it. It may also be that he needs to give up what he seeks, if he cannot truly have it, and make the best of things. I've had SL relationships explode in a puff of virtual nothingness, and they wouldn't seem to me to be something sure enough to bet my RL on. Yet I'd love it if I did meet someone here and I wound up knowing them RL as well, as long as we're careful of safety. People have made the SL to RL transition work. I am sure there have also been disasters.

I agree with the poster who said the child comes first.

SL was addictive to me because I live in a place where the cultural and educational differences are so significant, that I had no one to talk to, on a really personal level. I found good and intelligent friends in SL, but what part of that can I take back to my RL to help improve it? If I had not been in SL would I have managed to move away from this town already? If I had no SL, would the stress of my RL have pulled me down? I don't really know.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us Jordan. I definitely recognise some of what you are saying in my own life. Even though I won't let myself get that out of control, I am conscious of the fact it takes an effort not to. SL is just a very easy escape when RL is not going too well. Which is nice, until it becomes more than a just a place to chill, when it starts becoming a way to avoid dealing with one's real life.

Addiction, escapism, burnout, ... dangerous things all of them.

If it weren't secondlife, it would likely be some other form of escapism, and may yet be when secondlife burnout hits. Moderation is boring and rarely as much fun as a deep immersive addictive plunge, but it can delay the inevitable burnout that results when basic human needs fail to get met by an online world.

And yes.. I am speaking from personal experience, my own and close friends, both here in secondlife and in other online worlds.

...

Brent Recreant - اليكم نسخة لي! لقد أصبت بالصدمة والفزع ومستمتع جدا!
(from: that binary thread)

The thing that has made me stay in-world for hours on end occasionally has been building things or learning how to build things. Making something is a task whose outcome I am always anxious to see.

But for general socialising in SL I don't tend to be going for more than 2 to 3 hours at a time max.

In fact building and socialising for me are so different that I don't think they can be added together and described as addiction.

6 hours a day socialising in SL might be addiction.
6 hours a day building in SL might be addiction.
But 3 hours building and 3 hours socialising might NOT be addiction!

Coming onto these forums gives me a break from SL and I think they can provide a constructive way to stay in touch with SL (sort of) when you feel you want to be in-world but feel guilty about the amount of time you spend there.

I don't agree. Indeed people in SL are just as real as those in RL. I don't see the value of an appointment in SL is in any way less important than one in RL.

Now my RL environment sees these things in a different way. I have gotten into a very heavy argument once because I was in a meeting in SL that took rather long. I had a hard time to explain I could not run out of a meeting just like that. My partner argued: "That is a GAME. You are not having a meeting, you are playing a GAME. All those who attend the meeting are playing a GAME. Therefore you can walk out any moment you choose."

I would have considered running out of the meeting just as rude as it would be in RL.

I had a similar problem once.

There was once an escape very similar to Second Life that I had back in 1991; one that had me staring at a computer screen for over 10 hours a day, sometimes a lot more.

It took me away from my family literally 60 hours a week. Not kidding.

I loved it though; I had friends in that world, it was challenging, I could create. Sure, it was 1991 technology, but back then that was pretty good.

But it was really unhealthy, and began to affect my family life horribly. I rarely saw the sun.

I justified this because I was making money off it; the equivalent of $L 164,000 a week on average!

It wasn't worth it though. Turns out, the situation was less permanent than Second Life, and the whole situation eventually imploded one day.


To put it in clearer terms, it was a professional electrical engineering job.

Ironically, that first job took far more time from me, was far more damaging at home, and made me less money than Second Life does today.

* * * * *

It's not Second Life. It's something inside. Satisfy that something, or you are doomed to repeat the escape addiction in some other form, over and over again.

I agree. Although I do consider it a game, I treat people in world as I would in RL. If I make a date in SL i treat that just as seriously as a RL one. Now if a conflict arrives, RL will almost alwways take precedent, but just as I would call someone in Rl to say "Hey, I can't make it", I would try to log on and send an IM to the same effect . And if I anm in world and suddenly have to go, I would try to do so as graciously as possible, crashes not withstanding.

As a Serial Escapist since age 11 - Id have to agree.

There was no internet then ... There werent even CD players

Boy can I relate to this. I'm not on SL fourteen hours a day, but I do get on-grid every day, even if it's only for an hour. I can still break away for real life events.

But even so, I worry that I am spending too much time on SL. I'm going through a rough patch in RL myself, and I find SL to be a wonderful escape.

But sometimes too much escape can exacerbate rather than solve your problems.

*sigh*

Touching story Jordan. I know you'll do ok, you gotta think positive

As far as the obsession goes, I can see a lot of it in RL. Consider the fact you'll have to work 8/9 hours everyday, and in my case with a computer, to make money to survive. This is no different from being 8 hours a day in SL when you choose to live from that money instead of working for some big company. Less money but yet more freedom.

Nobody find strange that everybody has to obsessively work 8/9 hours a day to pay the bills, how come? Oh "because that the way things go" right? And the spiral goes on, the more you have the more you'll have to work until you have no life at all.

It gives me pleasure to be able to have a dream-job and enjoy myself working, so I've quited my RL job because that was the thing making me unhappy and unchallenged having a bad-pay, a boring boss and repetitive tasks to do, and grabbed this SL opportunity with all the teeth I have in my mouth.

I spend a LOT of time in SL building, learning and exploring. I'm not a social person either on RL or SL. I also have many mental disorders diagnosed to me, but then again, who doesn't? I don't take pills, I have SL and sunshine, they complete each other

Now I have the chance to spend a lot of time in the computer BUT do it anytime of the day I want and go for a walk if I feel like it, I'm much more happy now and I hope the web 3 is a success and virtual worlds succeed. So, between RL job obsession and SL obsession, I definitely prefer SL obsession. SL is not a granted way to pay the bills forever, but then again, no RL job either.

I would call it REAL not-very-useful obsession if SL means being on a virtual world for hours and hours just chatting and contemplating. But I do respect all the serial-social people out there, and it's my pleasure to build stuff for them

***
EDIT: I don't actually do a living just with SL yet, I also do freelance webdesign and illustrations. Just for the record

You mean all those other avatars aren't all computer controlled NPC's?

Who let people into my escapism world AHHHHGGGGGG!

Thank you for saying that. It's given me a lot to think about.

Hi and thank you all for responding.
As I write this, I have not logged into SL for several days. The last time I did, was to claim some L that I make doing consumer surveys.
After reading the responses, I just wanted to say that SecondLife affected my Real Life to an EXTREME degree. It does not have this affect on everyone. Those who it does have that affect on, know it.
For me...it was so bad that my children still mention it, and many around me are afraid I will "go back". Anytime I log on, and they see me, I have to deal with their concerned looks and sometimes verbalized warnings.
I am an extreme case, I know this...but I believe there are many others in world with the same affliction/addiction.
Part of my history includes a long distance SL romance, where we met in RL. It didn't work. After the meeting, I kinda "snapped out of it". Realizing that for me, SL is INDEED not reality.
I no longer have the desire to live in another world every waking (free) moment. It lost it's allure when I saw the pain that I had caused my family.
I have found a real life that I can live with, and perhaps that is what has helped me back away from the game as much as I have. I wish all of you much luck in life, both worlds. I learned a lot from my Second Life "lives"...most importantly: first life first. It's worth it.
I hope you find a similarly effective lesson to be learned.
All my best,
Jordan

One addiction we're born with, besides the natural addiction to food and water, is social interaction. For some people this works online much better than offline. Who is to say that is a malfunction and not an evolutionary step? If lemmings had developed our level of technology, they'd spend their lives in front of a computer screen and replace the normal procreation process with cybersex, instead of jumping off cliffs to prevent overpopulation.

This has happened to a lot of people, in a lot of different games, if that's any consolation.

A lot of good points made here, like Aleister's.

The friends I have in SL are the same as friends I have in RL, except in RL some of my friends are far away so we talk on the phone, which is as disembodied as SL in a lot of ways. And when I can, I meet real close game friends irl.

As for the idea of commitments - I used to run the Game Show Channel in TSO, and I had to be there every Tuesday and Thursday night. That was no hardship at all, really - rarely did that interfere with any family thing, and I enjoyed it so much it was worth it, always. When we went on vacation, I simply didn't have the games that night.

After a little over a year, we decided to stop doing that. Now I make it a point NOT to make such commitments in SL or any other game, but I surely do understand those who do. There's a lot of entertainment that depends on it, for one thing; and a lot of meetings where important things are discussed.

It's just that for me, I'd rather not be tied down that way anymore. (That's why I don't do custom content, either.)

As for the guy who is leaving his wife and kid, I've seen that before, too, and yes - even moving across the ocean!

Though that worked out for the adults involved in the relationship, I really can't stand it. I just don't think anybody with kids has any business going that far away for "love." I put love in quotes, because this business of throwing away all your other loves for The One Love doesn't cut any mustard with me.

If they leave their kids for somebody - I mean REALLY leave them - I just never look at them the same way again.

coco

I played SL till I just about collapsed at one point, when it first bit I planned 2 days holidays and hit SL hard to try an burn it from my system I played for near 48 hours straight over a Monday & Tuesday, then slept near 24hours on the Wednesday I was supposed to be back at work. Since then I did a few all nighters then went to work, sometimes not sleeping 2 nights in a row. But in the end I slowed down natrually, changed my directions in SL and stopped trying to learn everything at once. Still here near daily but 3-6 hours only

I have spent my entire life playing video games to escape from real life. Back when I was a youngster I would spend endless days playing space invaders, pacman, jet set willy, donkey kong, and 25 years later im still playing games to distract me from the monotomous bordom that is life, work, commitment and responsibility. However SL is not one of the games I use to escape RL. SL has allways been like work for me and too close to real life for the escape to be sucsessfull. As I earn rl income from SL then it has to be labelled as real in my opinion and the time spent there is labelled as work. i play other games to escape from the reality of second life and the pressures it contains. What I need is a 3rd life to escape from my second and first life.

I guess for you SL is more of a part time job than a pastime which is OK I guess. But your example is exactly why I have shunned any type of money making opprtunity so far. I don't want Sl to be work, I sometimes can't log on much for a couple of days, especially in the summer. I guess that's the best part of SL it can be different things to all of us. I hope that doesn't change.

I'm afraid to say that someone I know IRL had a very nasty shock when she accessed his PC and was in that very same position RL. She now has a totally new life in Manchester, away from the memory ... and the guy came out of prison a year or so ago, no idea what happened to him and I don't much care.

Which is to say ... if it can happen in SL it can happen in RL. Of course NONE of that was in SL ... I don't think she has even heard of SL.

I play a lot, I admit it, but while I am playing I'm talking to people I know RL and pretty much doing ordinary things. How is this different to RL in some ways? It's true, there are things I don't know about my partner I guess but plenty that I do. We take it for what it can be, given distance, jobs and other factors and I may never meet him. But for me SL is an entertainment, a project, and apart from being thinner in it than RL (isn't everyone?) ... I am myself as you'd know me RL.

Case in point. I nagged my partner into doing his laundry on Sunday afternoon. He nagged me until he was sure I'd called the electricity company and paid my bill on time.

Do I play too much? Well possibly I do but you know what, if I wasn't then I'd probably be reading books or watching DVDs or something - I'm still a homebody in this very quiet town ...

I find the concept of a virtual world becoming more important than the real world really frightening for some reason. I guess mostly because it could dissapear with the flick of a switch. I guess that doesn't make me the poster girl for the metaverse but I still really enjoy it in smaller doses. Everything in moderation.