Second Life. Gry wirtualne – szansa czy zagrożenie?

Abstract

Recent years have belonged to the generation of people whose basic form of entertainment is the digital play. For some people games may be the source of entertainment, information, education or even religious life in a deeper form and evangelization, whilst for others this is the way leading to isolation from the family and society, addiction, deterioration of the marriage life, depravation of parental rights, illness or even crime. Thus we can speak about chances as well as threats for mankind the virtual reality games bring about. The latter stem from the fact that games occupy a substantial part of the player’s life: the world of games; the virtual world intrudes into the real world so much, that the player is deprived of a part of his real life and on numerous occasions deprived of his „here and now” identity. The virtual world makes it possible to escape from one’s own identity through the construction of some other identity; the identity that is often irresponsible and hypocritical. It appears that the dividing line of understanding what the virtual world and new media should be has been violated. Where are the borders of the real and the virtual world? The answers to the questions are to be found in the subsidiary principle and the moral order in the real and the virtual world.