"nothing, absolutely nothing, can replace looking someone in the eye"
In these days of artificial intelligence and global communications it is rare to speak to someone and look them in the eye, how many more times do we say "Email me", or "Send me a text", unaware of the amount of information we will not be sending. There has been a growing trend of "internet relationships", the internet can bring the world to your fingertips, so why not personal contact too?
There is still a section of society wary of any electronic communication, but are they so wrong to look with suspicion at stories of love (or indeed whole lives) online?
I've tasted online life, and found it tempting. You can create your avatar to suit your own desires, you can live free of weakness, free of fear, free of suspicion. There are good things in the immediacy of finding other people in a lonely world, but there are dangers too. Just as you can choose how you wish others to perceive you, so they can lie, deceive, mislead, and ultimately hurt you.
There was a story this week of a couple divorcing, over infidelity on Second Life. The cause was perhaps addiction, temptation, the feeling that this infidelity could never be unearthed by the partner. Presumably the act of infidelity, even online, was a source of pleasure, of satisfaction, maybe even personal contact, but in involving someone other than this individual's committed partner, however unsubstantial the act was it has caused a deep wound.
Doubtless there are places where this could have happened outside Second Life, but could it have happened with so little consideration for the consequences?
What worries me mostly is that the wronged partner has now found another love through online gaming, and my concern is that this person lacks the confidence to step out from behind the avatar, and could find that to others the game is just that.
There is no substitute for looking someone in the eye, hearing their words, and seeing their thoughts made manifest, and any electronic communication must serve as a prelude to this, never as a replacement. And we must look within ourselves, beyond our avatar, and ask for the courage to face up to what we are and improve.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I also read the newspaper story about "Second Life" and was astonished. I find that people who have the need for a game like this can indeed become what they've always dreamt of becoming in "real life" (but are in reality still dreamers fleeing real life and treating both as a game). To all those people I would say, "wake up, your life started when you were born and you're living it now. Make something of it!".
Post a Comment