Living a Second/Third/Fourth Life

Working at tech company, very little about online activity shocks or surprises me these days. There are virtual blow jobs for sale in SecondLife, you can program your Tivo to record shows remotely, and you can even update your Facebook via your cell phone. What does shock me though, is how many of us already do live a "second life" -- online personae of ourselves that somewhat resembles but not necessarily accurately represents who we are. Our blogs share our thoughts with millions, our Facebook/ Friendster/ MySpace/ insert-name-of-social-networking-site-here page tells people who we are, what we look like (on a good day anyway), where we live, where we went to school, what we like, and who we're dating. People meet, date, and break up online. You can buy almost anything (shoes, drugs, organs) without ever having to step foot in a store. We even organize our offline social lives using evites, Google Calendar, and other tools that make actual human contact almost obsolete.

I think what makes sites such as Facebook so addictive is that you can basically keep track of your "friends" (and I use the term loosely) and what their thinking/feeling/doing without ever having to reach out and talk to them. You can ask them questions and get responses, send them good wishes, share photos, and even "poke" them, all with the click of your mouse. I'm as guilty as the next person of relying heavily on this time-sink to keep up with my friends. But then again, if I don't bother to step out of my "second life" in order to make these "friends" a part of my offline life, maybe that in itself is a sign. Are we all living too much in our second (or third or fourth) life that we're losing touch with our "first" life?