Open Forum: How Do You Integrate Your Second Life With Your Offline Life?

NWN reader "Adam" has been part of Second Life since 2003, but recently, his real life wife, who hates SL, "accused me of spending to much time in this virtual world," he wrote in an earlier Comment thread. "I'd like to see a discussion on how to integrate one's real life with Second Life and help other family members understand what Second Life is and can do." How do you achieve that balance, and integrate your virtual community with your offline relations, especially among the people you love who may not understand?

Comments

[radar]

It's not necessarily a matter of not understanding. Spending hours a day doing something is still spending hours a day doing something, whether your family members understand whatever it is or not.

A friend of mine once commented about his use of second life that he could say with a clear conscience that he wasn't stealing time from anyone by being in SL, and it took me awhile to get just how few people can actually say that with honesty.

It could be bowling league or beer and football, it really doesn't matter. If it's how you spend all your time while your family is off doing other things, you have a problem.

[Nyoko Salome]

;0 i just make fun of them back by pointing out how much time they simply spend in front of the tv, watching worthless crap. (at least i can, if i want, watch tv along with working on my sl projects.) but i would not make fun of bowling or playing pasttime sports, no matter how mild the exercise - it serves its purpose.

if one actually has a vocation with sl, whether full or part-time, one would hope that others would be able to understand that, even if they do not see the emergent possibilities with it, as they did with the web in the ninties. guess that was just 'easier' for them to grok. ;0

[Lorelei Armstrong]

I started making money. Problem solved!

[Mitch Wagner]

My wife has been computer widow since we started living together. It started with online services like GEnie and CompuServe in the early-mid 1990s.

She doesn't like it, but part of long-term commitment is learning to accept the things you hate about the other person.

[Adric Antfarm]

I find it's best to make sure the first world understands that is simply a title and not a position indicator.

Mitch is old like me!! I loved GEnie. I seem to recall just after they got the (not so useful) Win 3.1 interface the party was over. Compuserve was always good for weird stuff like (and I am fuzzy) 73323,222 type names and "go name" or such. I think it was billed hourly, so my memory is all in little chucks.

I would go on to Prodigy and AOL, but we all recall that.

[Adam]

Interesting points about the Web and similar reactions in the nineties. But at the end of the day as the cliche goes "If mama ain't happy then nobody is happy".

I have made about low 5 figures from SL overall since 2003. But honestly you look at it on an hourly basis.. and it's just not worth stealing time from my family. It's hard to pull myself from the environment especially when I see it being a great medium for 3d art and interactivity. I just am torn between possibility and traditional family values. At the end of the day my priorities are with the family. I dunno... It just sucks..

[Cristopher Lefavre]

Since getting a second life almost 2 years ago I have noticed my attention have shifted from books, music and movies to this online existence. I guess I don't totally use more alone time on media or hobbies, so it kind of evens out.

The conflict is when events collides in real time; these I normally resolve by prioritizing RL.

[Sioban McMahon]

RL always comes first.

SL itself, and many activities within it, are certainly addictive for some people and interfer or upset their RLs. I think a good rule of thumb is that if you have to hide or sneak something from those around you, you have a problem. Either the activity is a problem or the people around you are. The tough part, I guess, is deciding correctly which one it is.

[soror nishi]

Surely some mutual respect is necessary.
Don't partners have permission to use their leisure time as they wish?
Is watching TV together "quality time".... I doubt it.

SL is my hobby... like it or leave me.

:))

[Mako Kungfu]

Yeah, when people ask me how much time I spend in SL with intention to sneer, I ask how much TV they watch a week (usually ends up being more time than I spend in-world). I don't watch TV -- instead of parking myself in front of a non-interactive idiot box watching talking heads I'm in SL interacting with others and getting creatively charged (and for free). To each his own.

[Dizzy Banjo]

hahaha Mitch, thats a classic comment !

More and more, I think this problem of virtual places being only accessable via one entry point ( a single log in through a single avatar viewpoint ) will go away in the future. Possibly as virtual objects and people become more 'physical' and possibly as other ways of achieving virtual presence are created.

By that I mean, if I am with my girlfriend in a room and I log in to SL, I essentially leave the room and mentally go to a region in SL. Virtual environments dont support asynchronous presence very well at the moment - it would be rude to other people around me virtually to be semi afk for instance.

I want a situation where logging in, doesn't mean logging out of your physical location. I think this will solve many of these problems.