The other day I was watching MTV news and they were talking about a social network called second life and how virtual banks in this network where having some closures due to the real-live recession that is taking place in America. That got me thinking; have social networks gone too far and if they have not, is there a line to be drawn as to how far it goes.

Now if you don’t know what second life is, it is a social network that is set in a 3d world where you use a model of yourselves called avatars to interact with other avatars (people). What makes this social network interesting and odd in the same light is that it is based on real world characteristic of building a life and sustaining it. (If you want to try it visit the link http://secondlife.com/ )

At this point Facebook and MySpace are currently the leaders in the social network arena, but the future is looking grim and just like any trend, people tend to move on to the next thing. Second life could be the next buzz network but with a system like that we head closer to a time where social networks could completely take over our time.

At the prime of Facebook and MySpace, individuals would be spending full days communicating with close friends or friends that they have lost touch with. I think there is no problem with enjoying a social network session once in a while but the problem arises when online social networks takes over real social networks, for example when you are consistently rejecting the idea of spending time with friends to talk to them online. When this happens we actually lose the ability to be social face to face, and if that continues we might be hided to a future where personal communication ceases to exist.

Social networks along with movies, music, video games fall into the category of escapism and when we take part in those activities we are escaping our reality even if it is just for a moment, which is not a negative thing as I said, but if it is taking over it would be similar to being addicted to a serious drug.

When you have a social network like second life it makes you think if individuals spend their time living a second life and forget the first one; how would they succeed in the first and even worse how would someone tell the difference if their reality is completely based on virtual reality. That reminds me of a movie actually a dude in a trench coat dodging bullets, but the situation for humans in the movie was not the greatest.

Alexx