Second Strife
Emma Cowing
The Scotsman
The article I read dealt with the growing danger of the virtual program Second Life in which people can create a character and move through a virtual world meeting new people. In this case a 13 year old named Meghan Meier was roaming around her virtual world when she thought that she had met a 16 year old boy when in reality it was simply a construct made by her own friend to torment her. Upon being constantly berated by the cyber predator she committed suicide by hanging her self in the closet. Other stories include a 40 year old who wife caught him talking to another female in Second Life and they immediately got a divorce. Other horror stories have occurred including one man buy a gun in second life then killing his family before killing himself. Online virtual suicides have also become a growing phenomenon in Second Life. These acts simply prove that when people step into a world without boundaries they become worse, not better. In response to reading the article I found more than one thing disturbing. Most notably that people would take a virtual world so seriously that they would be driven to commit crimes or get divorced. Secondly in the case of the 13 year old girl her took her own life I blame in part he own parents who apparently did not have sufficient communication with her.
No comments:
Post a Comment