Second Lives

Since I haven't updated this blog in quite sometime, you can imagine that I've been busy. I've been catching up on readings for class, working on the college newspaper and writing some amazing things for that paper. It's taken a lot of my time. Plus, there hasn't been much to talk about (in my mind that is).

But something hit me the other day, while I was scanning Facebook for someone's contact information. How much easier our lives are because of the internet and the amount of information that we post. Facebook, MySpace, online dating…where does it end? We, as a society, have begun to have two lives. One that we live in person and one that we lead online. In fact, that idea has inspired a new online website called secondlife.com. On this website you can set up an entirely new life, a whole new person who owns things, buys things, sells things, who lives. 

Does anyone else see something strangely wrong with this? When did leading a double life become acceptable? That's exactly what is happening. People are becoming consumed with their online identity that they are losing their real identity. And I am victim to this as well. As a country we are spending more and more time online and less and less time interacting face to face.

Look at online dating for example. We weave this extravagant persona that is carefully crafted to present the best side of ourselves to entice and entrance members of the opposite sex (or in some cases, of the same sex) in hopes of finding our one true love. I'm not denouncing online dating; in fact I am trying it out. But what happened to face to face interaction? What happened to seeing someone in a store and asking them out?

Try this experiment for me. Time yourself and your online usage tonight or tomorrow. See how much time you spend doing homework, or research. And then time how much time you spend chatting on AIM, or surfing MySpace or Facebook. Look at those times and then take a longer look at what that means for you. If you are spending more time sitting at your computer to surf the web and check out the new video on YouTube and less time working on your history report then I would say you are one of the victims of this online epidemic.

The internet is an amazing technologically advancement that is allowing people from opposite ends of the earth to communicate and share ideas. Unfortunately, it's creating a rift in personal contact. I'm also a victim of this, I can barely go a day without checking MySpace, regardless of if someone posted something new on my comment wall or not. We are obsessed. And we need to find a way to begin reconnecting with real life, and attempt to leave our second lives behind.

Question Everything.