Alphaville Herald : Secret Lives and Virtual Families in Online Games

January 12, 2005

Secret Lives and Virtual Families in Online Games

By: The Teflon Don

In a recent article in New World Notes, Hamlet Linden tells us that Second Life partners Torley Torgeson and Lily Jade are actually guys in real life. Hamlet's article appeared nearly the same day as an article in the New York Times which discusses online experimentation with alternative lifestyles and family structures (and also keeping secrets) in online games. Taken together, these articles offer some interesting food for thought…

Let’s start with secrets. According to the article, some psychologists believe that we all need to keep secrets and maintain secret lives in order to thrive and be healthy. They go as far as to claim that playing games such as Sims Online allows people to live the secret lives that they cannot in real life in order to fulfill that requirement, not just for fun. Basically, if you play an online role-playing game one reason could be that it allows you to act on your fantasies in real life – fantasies that you may not be free to pursue for professional, familial or legal reasons.

This makes me wonder... If we need these so-called secret lives in order to remain healthy and we use online games as our outlet to live those lives, doesn't this show that sometimes an attack on an avatar is an attack on the person behind the avatar as well? If it is tied to our health and we do it out of necessity that would explain why people react so serious towards certain events that happen in-game to their avatars. Anything that jeopardizes a person’s ability to maintain their secret lifestyle causes some people to go into a frenzy. We've all witnessed it before. Mafia wars, smack-talking websites, hacking are all small tale-tale signs of this.

Another issue raised in the article has to do with the formation of virtual families in games. Many people have sim moms and sim dads, but what does this mean? Sherry Turkle at MIT has thoughts about the role that virtual families play – they serve as ways of articulating the kinds of families we wish we had or of exploring alternative lifestyles. From the article:

Most recently, Dr. Turkle has studied the use of online interactive games like Sims Online, where people set up families and communities. She has conducted detailed interviews with some 200 regular or occasional players, and says many people use the games as a way to set up families they wish they had, or at least play out alternative versions of their own lives.
One 16-year-old girl who lives with an abusive father has simulated her relationship to him in Sims Online by changing herself, variously, into a 16-year-old boy, a bigger, stronger girl and a more assertive personality, among other identities. It was as a more forceful daughter, Dr. Turkle said, that the girl discovered she could forgive her father, if not change him.

I strongly recommend reading both it and Hamlet’s recent article. There is much to think about here.

Jan 12, 2005 10:21:03 PM | Miscellaneous

9 Comments

hahaha This sounds like a bad excuse someone would give their girlfriend or wife for cheating on them. "I'm sorry honey.. I had to for my sanity and well-being."

JC Soprano
www.thesimmafia.com
#1 with a virtual bullet

Posted by: JC Soprano | January 13, 2005 at 12:44 PM

Only side comment to that is some people take it a bit to far and end up replacing their real family with these fake ones. While its all said and good to go about this manner it has shown harm in the long run with some, and in a growing manner. Virtual Addiction is biggest cause and effect. As people live more of their 'dream' life, the more they lose touch with reality and become something of pity.

Posted by: JF | January 13, 2005 at 02:03 PM