It’s odd, it seems, to live in a world where the balance of my social interaction occurs in an electronic form. Yes–I communicate with more people by e-mail, IM, and telephone than I do by handshake and face-to-face conversation. Am I a tech-geek? Absolutely. Am I a sought-after tech-geek? Yeah, probably.

But it still seems odd.

After all, people are people, not outgrowths of the global networks. We didn’t build the global network so we could service it. We built it so that it could service us. And when I look retrospectively at many of my experiences online, I think that the network has, to one degree or another, become rather self-serving indeed.

We see this in the social constructs that exist on the network. Myspace, World of Warcraft, Second Life, and other much-ballyhooed 2.0 social platforms all suffer from the same basic flaw: they connect people, but they don’t CONNECT people. Do you get what I’m saying? Now, did these gifted software developers set out to replace the skin-to-skin handshake, the pat on the back, the bear hug, or the French kiss? Of course not. But, as evidenced by the life-like female robot that came across Wired from Japan about a month ago, people may be trying to up the ante on these real-world treasures of human contact.

And even in the metaverse, especially Second Life, there seems to be an obsession with replicate the audiovisual experience of real-life social events, everything from eating to dancing to sex. But the Second Life experiment is so primitive right now because of its fundamental limitation: it’s not real. None of it is real. And so, you either engage in some element of fantasy–for entertainment purposes, or you fool yourself by putting too much weight on the social interaction. Nerds used to go to the library to play Dungeons and Dragons. Now, they go to Second Life to type chat messages, build “sex balls”, and listen to concerts that would arguably sound and feel a lot better in person. Meanwhile, in Second Life, there’s this sort of altruistic hippy backdrop to the entire experience. Everybody gets tips in 2L. Here’s a tip: live music sounds better LIVE.

Look, it’s not that I’m saying this stuff isn’t cool. But like I said, is Second Life really the killer application for streaming audio, 3d visualization, and instant messaging? Of course it’s not. It’s just fun.

World of Warcraft is a similar beast. This fantasy role-playing game is probably the deepest piece of computer entertainment software ever created. But how much dragon-slaying and night-elf cybering does your typical preoccupied human with a life have to do before he or she realizes there’s very little lasting human value in the experience of WoW? Again, it’s all very beautiful; it’s all very engaging and entertaining. But what’s the sum total at the end of the day (or year). What does one really gain socially or personally by investing large amounts of valuable time into the metaverse?

I would argue: nothing.

Yes, I’m going to get flamed about this. But before you flame away, let me tell you my story about WoW. My wife and I used to spend a lot of time together playing Diablo, and later WoW. We had our computers set up side by side in our office, and, after the kids went to bed, we’d be slaying dragons and finding treasure chests and all that. And it was a blast.

But WHY was it a blast? Because we were doing it together–in person, in the same room.

Later, my wife got into a “uber guild” where she started doing Warcraft raids that took three, four, sometimes six hours to complete. Her WoW habits changed, became much more strenuous and dedicated, and I didn’t have the time nor the inclination to keep up with her much more ambitious involvement in the system. And eventually, she didn’t want to play with me and my “lowbie” character any more.

So I quit playing. WHY did I quit playing? Because the human involvement reward was now gone. Which brings me back to my original point.

People mislabel folks they’ve never met in person, but have chatted with or IMed for years, as friends. They make the mistake of refering to people as friends when they’ve never invested a face-to-face minute with them.

This is why, instead of merely blogging and emailng with my contemporaries and peers, I actually make every effort to MEET them in person, at tradeshows, when they’re traveling through town, why I’m traveling through their towns.  Because there’s a certain accountability in relationships that I prefer. It’s the thing that “makes it real”.  Call me old-fashioned, I guess. I just prefer my human relationships to matter.

Before formulating an opinion about it, I went to Second Life with an open mind. And I logged maybe twenty hours over the course of a month or so.  I came away with an empty feeling, as if I’d be better off investing that time in a venue where people actually are–physically.  Like my kids’ play room.  Or my mom’s apartment. Or church. Or the rock and roll bar.  Or my neighbor’s front porch.  Important things and people exist in these places, and it’s important–in my life anyway–not to allow these in-the-flesh experiences to be replaced or offset by the metaverse.  The metaverse should not encroach upon these things for one simple reason: they are real, and it is not.

So, in all honesty, I can say, I went to Second Life, and nothing was there.