Second Life is a phenomenon. The virtual world where you create your own persona, a new persona.  You can be anything you want.  You create yourself as a beauty, as strong, as someone you aren’t in real life, in First Life.

I’m told that, however different you try to be, your real personality shows through. You cannot hide yourself. But, I’m not convinced. After all, one hides one’s true self in First Life. Saying and doing things that will please others, that will make them like you. Being polite, being the person that they want. And, in SL you have that, true, but you can be a different person. You can meet and find people and things that you would not in First Life.

So, how can it affect FL? What change can it make to you, as a person (a real person, that is)?

My experience is limited, of course. I only know of three people who are Second Lifers. But, in a few short weeks, the change has been dramatic.

To be in SL you really have to work to US time (Pacific time, I understand). So you need to be ‘alive’ in Second Life from late afternoon until 3 or 4 in the morning; the later, the better.

And, that leads to sleep deprivation. It seems that it makes the people I know, cranky and irritable. Suddenly. They are no longer satisfied with the life they had, they are bored by having physical interaction. They can’t just fly away. People annoy them easily. They are tired – and it shows. They may be a beautiful person in SL, but in FL, they lose their looks. The bags under their eyes, the pale faces are real, not virtual.

Stop it, people! I would say ‘get a life’ but, in this case, ‘lose a life’ and come back to the real one where you were a nice person, please.