I read about this recently, and I have to admit I was dumb-struck. I couldn't believe that there were actually people doing this. It's every Sci-Fi story I ever read come true. I don't know whether to be appalled or saddened, or possibly both. It really is rather sad that someone would rather lead an imaginary existence than a real one. Well, I think I'll go immerse myself in some reality. It's not pretty, but it's real.

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This is one of those phenomenons that have to run its normal course. Part of the attraction of this game is the premise that you can earn Linden dollars (online equivalent of real money) for the work that you do online and then convert it into real money! That kind of temptation is pretty hard to beat when you have media coming out with regular reports of people having it struck big in 'Second Life'. But as with any other real world entity, you really need to put in efforts to earn all those dollars and people who start out can in SL are more often than frustrated souls after the end of the first few sessions! While there are more avatars than you can count, a good portion of these members drop out since the game is pretty darned hard to play, especially for newbies! <BR>
Eventually things will come to a point where only the serious minded people will stick around, but even without SL these are people who would have otherwise spent a lot of time online playing Everquest or made real money in the real world