The Tradeoffs of Second Life

The reading assignment about Second Life is unusual because of the views expressed in the reading. The first time through the reading I started to think that Second Life was great because of all the opportunities presented to the players. I then quickly realized this was because the article did not discuss any of the negatives or drawbacks. The article was very biased in this sense, because it did not even bother to employ the “they say, I say” form of argument. I can think of many scenarios when this game can be good for a person, but I can also imagine many more that the person becomes worse off as a result. An example of how this game can be used for benefit would be someone that deals with discrimination or cruelty on an everyday basis. They may be disabled and unable to do the things that others take for granted. When they log into Second Life they are free to do all those things and are just the same as everyone else, which is what they want. They can achieve a sense of acceptance in this game when in real life they do not always have that opportunity because of their physical or mental disability. That good example can be outweighed by many negative examples; specifically how a person basically destroys the potential they have by obsessing with this game. They lose control of their ability to improve themselves, by choice, and this is unfortunate because this causes them to disconnect from reality. This game can be good for certain individuals, but it is much worse for a larger group of individuals because of all they lose by becoming overwhelmed with this game.