Anthropology 295: Anthropology of Media

I just read the article "Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?" I'm so conflicted! If i was this man's wife I would definitely be upset. Maybe his avatar is not representative of who he really is as a person, but if he's playing second life for 20 hours a day and sleeping the other 4 hours, he is truly abandoning the obligations he has in his real life. The idea of virtual living is a tough thing to figure out. On the one hand, some people probably only play a couple times a month or so, in which case, I can't really argue that SEcond Life is ruining cultural values. But for people like Ric, Second Life is devouring the elements that make up a lifestyle. Or is Second Life a lifestyle in itself? It's hard to argue whether or not Ric is cheating on his wife (for those of you who havent' read the article, Ric's avatar has been married for seven months). He and the real-life woman behind his virtual wife have no intentions of ever meeting but they spend hours a day together online - vacationing, clubbing, cooking, whatever. My argument is that Ric is not necsesarily cheating on his wife with another woman, but he should still be concerned that he is abandoning his obligations as a husband. His wife must feel completely alone and unwanted. Ric argues that he has tried to get his wife to play second life with her but she's not interested. This shows me that Ric has no desire to compromise and that Second Life is more important to him than his first life. It's stories like these that concern me about the virtual world is eating us all and soon The Matrix will be a real-life situation. Programs like Second Life have increased opportunities to cease wanting the "real" or the "experience." Ric is living vicariously through his younger, studly, and rich avatar but he is not going through anything that is tactile or tangible. Facebook and Myspace work in the same way but in a lesser sense. People spend hours going through people's picturse and reading about their interests, their favorite books, favorite quotes and more. But this is not the experiential way of getting to know somebody, nor is it helping you go out and meet actual people and enjoy the experience of a good friendship or even a good conversation.

This is my concern. Technology should be available to help ourselves gain more insight: i.e. documentaries that inspire us to travel, scholarly articles online that help increase our understanding of a certain political situation, news stories that make us want to spend more time with a charity. Whatever it is, it should send us back into the non-mediated world and affect how we want our life experience to be like. Media that sucks you in and acts as an eraser to your being a contributional member of society does not seem to help or benefit anyone.