Second Life ? a threat to real life?

The popularity of a virtual world based on the internet could soon start to have a serious impact in the ability of users to interact with people in real life, a leading scientist has claimed.

Second Life is a game wherein players can create a character that looks like them that operates in a 3D virtual world, and according to Baroness Susan Greenfield it may become so popular with some people that they will forgo "real-life" relationships in favour of ones conducted via the web.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Baroness Greenfield, the director of the Royal Institution, said: "People who dismiss it as a game will be in for a rude awakening. This will have a huge impact on society.

"Offering people the chance to have a permanent soap opera going on, in which they can participate, will be even more pervasive than reality TV such as Big Brother. This is the ultimate in that you can be involved, you can interact, but still you are hiding behind an avatar. Could it be that in the future they will say, 'A real relationship! Urgh, how horrible'?

"The messiness and squalor of the real world, and the real-time element, might be offset by the more sanitised, two-dimensional reality of Second Life."

There are now seven million Second Life players across the world, all of whom can create characters of their own - known as avatars - and buildings, as well as buy goods on the marketplace and own virtual land.