I sometimes google news of Second Life, or Rod Humble, to see if there’s any news on Second Life or Rod Humble! So today I discover a story that claims that a man’s addiction to Second Life was cited in a divorce case. The story claims that the man, who can’t be named (and nor can his avatar) spent twenty five hours a week in Second Life.
He was also said to be addicted to watching porn on his computer, one would hope he was not partaking in adult activities in Second Life and then going for more outside of Second Life! There are claims that this may be the first case whereby Second Life has been cited in a divorce case, but it’s unfortunately not, in 2008 there was the Dave Barmy affair. This one involves all sorts of shennanigans, including a honey trap!
Then there’s a case that was apparently reported in the now defunct News Of The World, but made its way to the Huffington Post: Second Life Divorce: Woman Catches Husband In Virtual Gay Affair :
“I saw John’s little person having it off with another man in a dungeon on the screen,” said horrified Lisa, 28.
This sort of thing isn’t specific to Second Life, Facebook and other social media sites have been cited in divorce cases and I expect this to increase, especially as we embrace the digital world more firmly. The issue isn’t really Second Life, or Facebook, there will be far deeper issues involved in all of these cases, ones that will make more sense and should be taken more seriously.
The other side of the coin is that people meet and become happily married via these mediums, that’s reported less often because they don’t attract as much attention as reporting the bad aspects, especially when it comes to tabloid newspapers.
There’s also the issue that Second Life weddings, inworld I’m talking now, can involve lag, late Priests, drunken brides and unwelcome guests playing strange animations.
Stories like this shouldn’t reflect badly on the likes of Second Life or Facebook, as in a lot of cases, it’s an issue the individual has, that goes far deeper than the pixels on the screen, that is the root cause, but you’d need someone like a psychologist to explain this properly and that’s so far out of my field that I can’t even see the ball.
The moral of the story here for Linden Lab, is that if you were blogging about Second Life, I wouldn’t have to go looking for stories!