SlimGirlFat - aka Slimmie - is a musician in Second Life. She runs the music island of Menorca where I have performed and spoken before. A UK talk show has now interviewed her as well as several others who are involved with SL. They discuss the concept of creating on online personality and whether or not it is "real."
A quote from the interview notes that 1 in 5 people now spend more time in game than at work and may even consider their online selves as more a reflection of their selves than their real-life counterparts. They touch on economic concepts as well as demographics. It's an all around nice sketch of what Second Life is and can be.
SL happens to be my particular on-online world of choice. There are several others out there including Eve-Online, World of Warcraft, and others.
I still see the phenomenon as a type of discovery of a new land. Some people embrace it and run towards it. Some fear it and avoid it. The very interesting thing about this, though, is that in contrast to prior discoveries of new lands, this one can be switched on and off and melded into the prior land. People can achieve some quantum states of separate existences.
