Much has been written in the last four months about the economic impact of Second Life  in publications like the New York Times and CNN. To some degree, the initial shock of hearing people pay $200 in real U.S. dollars for a virtual home (albeit one that doesn’t really exist) has worn off. However, the real world impact of Second Life so far has been limited to advertising and economics. Socially and culturally, though, Second Life has not had as much of an effect. No real-world friendships have been lost because of a heated dispute between avatars.

As The Wall Street Journal revealed in its August 10 issue, this is all about to change.

 
(Source: The Wall Street Journal Online)

The Journal article “Is This Man Cheating on His Wife” focuses on a 53 year-old man, Ric Hoogestraat, who created his own male avatar named Dutch Hoorenbeek. He soon meets another female avatar and established a close Second Life friendship … then relationship, and subsequently a marriage with avatar Tenaj Jackalope, who is controlled in real life by Janet Spielman. As Hoogestraat spent more and more time in Second Life and his avatar spent more and more time with Jackalope, he spent less time with his real life wife, Sue Hoogestraat.

As one might imagine, the real life wife became jealous, and Sue Hoogestraat’s children are quoted as saying that the real life marriage is “beyond repair.” According to family law experts and marital counselors, though, the Hoogestraats’ deteriorating marriage is not an isolated case. The article cites that an increasing number of marriages are crumbling because of “virtual infidelity.” This begs the question, if virtual marriages are causing real life marriage trouble, are the virtual marriages all that virtual?

So far, many of the reports about Second Life and other worlds have focused on the economic, marketing, and social opportunities of these worlds. Not much has been written about the potentially negative consequences of these worlds. The possibility of a world that doesn’t even exist to cause a marriage rift seems incredible. Then again, many other fast growing forms of technology have come with their own set of undesirable side effects. As great a tool as the internet is, a slew of problems have come with it as a result of the enormous inappropriate and sometimes dangerous content that is available to anyone. However, the obvious benefits far outweigh any possible negatives.

It will be interesting to see how much the culture of virtual worlds affect the real world. It presents amazing possibilities for social interaction; never has it been easier to interact side by side with someone who is on the other side of the country, much less the other side of the world. Companies can now hold real business meetings in virtual conference rooms.

Given that some analysts say that this current growth is only the beginning of the boom, we can expect even greater potential for more virtual world, and in turn real world, opportunities. However, one question that may be asked down the road is “Do virtual world opportunities enhance or take away from the real world?”

If you ask Sue Hoogerstraat, the answer is probably the latter. If the marriage does end up in divorce, her husband may have effectively traded his real world wife for a virtual one. “The other life is so wonderful; it’s better than real life. Nobody gets fat, nobody gets gray. The other person that’s left can’t compete with that,” said Sue Hoogerstraat.

Sue brings up an interesting point. Many analysts have said that the main reason people choose to get into virtual worlds is because it is an escape. As a result, more and more people are spending 12 to 14 hours in virtual worlds. When people spend the majority of their day in these worlds, it can be easily argued that they are investing more time and energy in their virtual life than they are in the real life. Whether it’s because people are dissatisfied with their real lives or because worlds like Second Life provide a new alternative to reality.

I think that as the popularity of virtual worlds increase, so will the side effects; with virtual marriages and friendships coming at the expense of real world ones. It is likely that in the present and future that for most users, these worlds will become a powerful medium of social interaction that opens up all kinds of doors and opportunities. As the Hoogestraats remind us, for more than a few, virtual worlds have the potential to present a variety of real life problems. Even so, it’s hard to argue that the positives don’t outweigh the negatives.