Iris Wants to Know: Ever Put Your Virtual Life on Hiatus?

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

We've all thought about it. Whether you're a dedicated Second Life user or your online connections lie in social media or even along your guildies, sometimes you can help but think about taking a break. And some of us even manage to do so successfully, slipping free of digital commitments for a month or two and coming back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It's a particularly common thought to have around this time of year, too. Spending a bitter winter cooped up with your screens can sure make you yearn for anything but that.

Not all of us have actually done it, though, no matter how often we consider it. I've thought about it as much as anyone, but at the end of the day my own hands are somewhat tied -- and that's why I want to hear from you.

Because I write about Second Life regularly, I've never really had the chance to take a proper hiatus from it. I've had hot and cold periods withit of course, but there's always been something I just have to keep an eye on, someone I just have to keep in touch with. Even if you don't write about SL, maybe your own situation doesn't feel so different. For many, Second Life is something like Twitter, Skype, WoW and Facebook all rolled into one. Nevermind taking a hiatus from one of those communities, but what about all of them at once? As far as I'm concerned that's not a question of addiction or over-reliance so much as it is communication. Could you stop communicating for a month or two? Whether you use the virtual world for work or not, that can seem pretty overwhelming.

And then there are the folks who go on hiatus and never come back. The idea that something you've put so much time into could end up being completely disposable is... Well, kind of frightening, don't you think? Frightening, or liberating.

I don't know. That's what I'm wondering, and why I want to hear from you: Have you ever taken a hiatus from one (or all) of your virtual communities? How did it feel to leave, and how did it feel to come back... If you came back at all? As always, share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

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Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.

Comments

[Cisop Sixpence]

I've never put it on hiatus, but I have had to reduce it from 7 days a week to 4-5 days a week, just so I can fit some RL in.

[Nebulosus Severine]

Yes, I did -- although not intentionally. Still on hiatus.

In late 2012, my desktop PC died abruptly and irreparably. Pretty much everything failed at once, so it wasn't possible to just replace what broke. I couldn't afford to buy a new computer. My job had cut back my hours to almost nothing, yet I still had to keep open availability. I didn't have a car then either so my options for finding more work were extremely limited. I was broke and things were grim.

I was able to obtain a refurbished low-end laptop for a couple hundred bucks, but it has never been powerful enough to handle SL, even with all the graphics set to the lowest possible options (and I'm an artist; why or HOW would I create with everything turned down, anyway?). I even tried the Radegast viewer, but can only use the text-based portion of it. So, I can log in occasionally to say hello to friends or check messages, but there is no way for me to function in SL otherwise.

After my PC died and my job was quickly going south, I managed to go back to school with financial aid, and got a used car. I just completed my Associates Degree in Fine Art in December of 2014. So, I've managed to keep busy in a productive way during my absence from SL.

But after all this time, I'm still struggling to save up the money I need for a new PC or laptop. I've had brief visits to SL when I've been able to use my long-distance partner's laptop, but that's about it. I am in the middle of a big move across the country to live with my SL partner, so I can only work part time, and that money is going toward moving stuff. I really miss my SL friends, and as an artist I KNOW I have missed out on a LOT of things. I hope that I can catch up someday if I'm ever able to get back in-world. I do have a crowd-funding campaign for people who want to support the next phase of my art career by helping me to raise money for a new PC or laptop. https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/1uqae/ab/d4Jwde

[Cake]

I've left multiple times to work on books or comic projects.

[Levio Serenity]

Yep, on hiatus now. I left after a combination of SL and RL events and needing to get outside a little more often. My LCD tan was real.

Most of my closest friends I made in SL I've kept in touch with via email/skype/facebook.

In response to one of the previous blog post about creators responding to their clients online. One important thing that I didn't see mentioned is how many customers you have. It's one thing when you have 80 customers or 800 customers, but when you get to the point of having 100,000 customers you can no longer give a quality experience at that level.