Real Life Penalties for Virtual Life Sins

Last night, we caught a documentary on the telly about Bill Gates' role in revolutionizing the world of personal computers.

Ironically, the same apparatus that gave Microsoft its success - people connected via their PCs - is now making its continued domination close impossible. Once a titan in determining people's computer habits via the MS compatible software they sold, MS now has to fight with free Internet download-able software and the Google generation.

What a different world we're in now, compared to a lifetime ago of all of ... 10 years ago.

10 years ago, I was a uni student, scrambling past fat bums in swivel chairs, through narrow aisles in the com labs at school, trying to look for the one PC which had the quickest connection, could send files reliably to the printer, and wouldn't hang.

There, I was introduced to the IRC - Internet Relay Chat. The ancient forefather of Facebook and social networking sites like Second Life.

There was something just so alluring about connecting with someone whom you've never met, and in all practicality, you never will. A stranger in the night, and all you know of him or her are the text in sans serif font appearing on the screen in front of you.

We exchanged mutual sob stories, secret wishes and hopes, these strangers and I. It made me think I wasn't all alone in the world.

Best part was, there were no strings attached. We didn't really have a relationship, so accordingly there were no consequences to hold us back.

But I also realized quickly how a simple, true, description of myself would draw instant interest:

Stranger: So tell me about yourself.

Me: I'm 19, studying Lit at uni now. Female. Used to play competitive tennis in school.

Stranger: Wow. What do you look like?

Suddenly the urge to search for words to represent myself in the best possible terms. Self-flattery. Euphemisms.

My first fantasy me. My first avatar.

Later on, in my early twenties, I joined an Internet dating service out of a random curiosity that allowed me to create a profile of myself, and there I posted a random pic of myself. Again, a flurry of emails arrived in my inbox. To which I could never truly respond to, so unsure I was that even if we did meet face to face if they responded to my persona or the real me.

Then there was Friendster.

Now, there is Second Life - a fully fledged virtual alternate reality in which your personal avatar can be anyone you want him or her to be, and where there is no sickness or death.

So when this piece of news caught my eye - of how a man's avatar was caught having an affair in Second Life and it led to his real life divorce - I think we need to take a look again at where we are going as a human race.

We've been led off the precipice, I think.


Never before has the line between our real lives and make-believe lives been more blurred.

Never before have people been so addicted to wanting a version of themselves to be so out there, so over to top, in expressing all the facets of themselves that are repressed in real life: hence the accountant with a hooker avatar, the teacher whose avatar opens an adult shop earning Linden dollars that can be exchanged for real U.S. dollars.

And never before, have people so earnestly regarded this fantasy self to be more authentic than the ones whose bodies they inhabit.

Second life has become a frankenstein of people's sick self-reinventions stitched together and stuck to each other in a gooey mess known as "social networking". It's rank. It's a Bronte desire gone haywire, a scary woman in the attic escaping her place in the mind of her human creator into the real world, and leaving a path of self-destruction behind her.

And as a mother, it worries me that not enough is being done to educate children about Internet safety.

Children need to learn how to represent themselves on social networking sites, how to safeguard their identities, and seek the truth about who they are not from the words and images they stitch together in these fantasy make-believe situations which abound in these places, but from what the Bible says about who they can be in Christ.

I was once tempted to join Second Life, to create an avatar for myself, and see what the big deal is about. But I think life - our real, disease- and struggles-stricken lives - truly is too short.

Who's going to solve the real problems in the world?