How do creators and the like deal with SL addiction?

[bebejee]

There are lots of tales of how SL has messed some people up who didnt have control over it, most of them are just players, but what about the content creators and estate people who are addicted to the place, do they quit or what? do they see it as additiction spending upto 10 hours a day on here if thats what they are doing?  like that creator woman in the documentry life 2.0, isnt that addiction, she seeme dto have no life other than what she was doing.

[Bobbie Faulds]

Most creators that are in like that are working, not playing. It's a job for them, not play time. Big difference between being inworld and working, making and selling things and being at a club dancing. For the successful creators are making enough to live on in RL so it's a job, not fun time.

For instance, I make clothing specifically for mesh bodies that uses appliers. That means spending time in Photoshop creating and texturing the clothing. Then I have to upload the clothing texture. Next I have to set up the various appliers. Depending on which mesh part it's for, that can be a simple notecard with the individual buttons on the hud named (Slink) or doing each individual button (Lena, tango, ghetto, Wowmeh, Brazillian, etc.) of putting the info on a website (The Mesh Project). For a regular top, that's one hud. If it's a long top, that requires one for the upper body and one for the lower part of the shirt. If it's a full outfit, we're talking 3 huds that are set for the proper layers. Then, I have to make the clothes on layers for inworld wearing. After that, if I have attachments, such at pants cuffs, sleeves, etc, those all have to be made and textured in world. Then I have to make the ads and hud textures. Now I can finally package it up and put it for sale.

A simple top can take 8 hours to do. I do fatpacks rather than individual colors for sale. The most I charge, for 15 colors, is 350L. That translates to a bit over $1 USD. I do it more for the creative enjoyment than actually making money.

[bebejee]

Thats alot of time, do you continue being on the grid or online after you are through?

[Vivienne Schell]

Until 2009 or so Linden Lab published statistics on Linden Dollar "income" in SL, then they ceaed this. But back then there only were about a few hundred people who actually received  "noteworthy" amounts (more than 1000 US dollars a month). Included was any kind of income, from wherever and for whatever. Content creators most probably were a minority even there. The vast majority of users never made and still does not make more than a few US dollars a month.

I don´t think that this has changed. The overwhelming majority of people who make and sell things in SL are most probably not earning enough money to call it a "job", or even "income". A very, very, very few are professionals, of course. The rest is in it for the fun and the "merchant game", as a hobby or for whatever reason. And yes, a few surely are addicted.

[Syo Emerald]

Addiction is not necessary definied by the time you spend on something. Because just the amount of time spend on something would mean we all would be addicted to work, for example or other activities, that take up a lot time.

As someone who knows how psychological tests about addiction are build, I can say that the amount of time is not important. Far more important are the impact thing X has on your life, how you feel about that, how it has influenced your life so far and (most important) if you could stop doing X, when necessary.

So for SL this would mean that if you couldn't stop playing, start to avoid things that would get you away from SL (cooking, cleaning the house or something you regularly did), if it had a negative impact on your job and overall life. Then, only then would you bee addictec. Just spending your free time in SL isn't an addicition. If you have the possibility to spend 8 hours a day on hobbies, its nobodies business to judge, if the way you chose to spend that time is good or bad. If you don't have that 8 hours, then of course, there is a problem.

[Ceka Cianci]

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Syo Emerald wrote:

Addiction is not necessary definied by the time you spend on something. Because just the amount of time spend on something would mean we all would be addicted to work, for example or other activities, that take up a lot time.

As someone who knows how psychological tests about addiction are build, I can say that the amount of time is not important. Far more important are the impact thing X has on your life, how you feel about that, how it has influenced your life so far and (most important) if you could stop doing X, when necessary.

So for SL this would mean that if you couldn't stop playing, start to avoid things that would get you away from SL (cooking, cleaning the house or something you regularly did), if it had a negative impact on your job and overall life. Then, only then would you bee addictec. Just spending your free time in SL isn't an addicition. If you have the possibility to spend 8 hours a day on hobbies, its nobodies business to judge, if the way you chose to spend that time is good or bad. If you don't have that 8 hours, then of course, there is a problem.

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This! ^^

[Phil Deakins]

What Syo said, plus...

Why did you ask specifically about creators? Do you imagine that creators must be addicted? Or do you imagine that only creators are likely to be addicted? I imagine you picked on creators because you think that those who spend a lot of time creating stuff must be addicted. Syo showed that those who spend a lot of time doing one particular thing do not do it because of an addiction to it. Some such people may have an addiction but most (imo) don't.

As a creator, I was one of the very few who was making enough money from SL to be a decent RL income, but I was never addicted to SL, or to creating, or even to spending time in SL. It wasn't my RL income because i didn't need it. It was totally unexpected - I actually stumbled into making that sort of money here. The time came when I got bored with it (my interest waned) and I virtually pulled the plug on it; i.e. I stopped creating and decided to let my store fade away until the RL earnings from it weren't worth having. That was some years ago and it's still fading away. There was no addiction to deal with. What there always was for me was immersion. My nature is such that, when I find something I really enjoy, I get immersed in it, as I did with SL and creating etc. But that's not addiction. When something else turns up that interests me I get immersed in that instead. Such immersions can be turned off at any time because they are not addictions.

[Bobbie Faulds]

I regularly do other stuff...going to movies...I'm an avid knitter and working on finishing up an afghan....4 more squares and then I have to block and put them together....SL is a hobby. I'm disabled so can no longer sew due to a severe shoulder injury. I can, however, create clothes. SL doesn't interfer with my RL in any way.

The ones that I've seen that are addicted are more like the ones that go clubbing and RP...yes...SL is RPing. You are usually playing a character that isn't like you in RL. You really look like that in RL? I know I don't. Creators are using SL as a creative medium as opposed to canvas, paints, needles and thread, etc. For one, takes up a lot less room. You should see my yarn stash or my fabric stash back when I had the room for it....grins.

[markkemp]

Second Life addiction?

Creators often don't spend a lot of time in SL because they have to run heavy 3D software and things. I try to log in at least once a day though to check notecards and IMs. Good to stay in touch with your customers.

I would say though that many of us just replace SL addiction with work addiction....:matte-motes-stress:

 

 

[Vivienne Schell]

Right, Phil. Out of 100 content creators who sell something which really needs more than ten minutes to hack there might be  2 (or so) who are actually addicted to SL.

Considering that 95 percent of all users are consumers primarily, the total addict numbers off the "content creator" circuit should be a lot higher.

:matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:

 

[Tamara Artis]

Addicted are ones who run to the forums to post "OMGGG I can't login wtf is with SL???" every time there is some maintenance going around and logins are disabled. I don't know if those people are creators or not. 

There are many people who spend countless hours online, I do it every now and then when I am home all day and too lazy to logoff because I will come back to SL after I finish some other stuff, and while my avi is online standing on my platform I make lunch, do laundry, clean the house etc. is that addiction? 

I did think many times that I will become or am becoming addicted because I was involved in many things here. In spring this year I was attending some classes in SL during few months and it was a hell of a time to arrange RL so I can have time to go to class. They were great but each class lasted 3 and more hours and to be honest I hated it, first because of my bad attention and second because often I had to explain myself to someone why I want to stay home and play SL. 

If you are affraid of becoming addicted to SL think of all the things in real life that you don't do because you play SL. Do you catch yourself thinking about SL (instead of rl things) while, for example, walking down the street? Do you postpone certain things like going to bed in normal hour or taking your dog to walk because you have something interesting online? If it happens often then get yourself together so you don't become one of the people from the first part of my post. 

[Syo Emerald]

Haha, I don't think all of those people are addicted...some may just be too dumb to gasp the concept of maintenance :matte-motes-big-grin-squint:  I suspect those are the same people that either see SL as a sort of 3D facebook or expect service like they get it in a AAA MMO. The first never has maintenance that impacts the user and the second can afford to have either short maintenances or is able to have their maintenances split to match the different timezones.

At least thats my impression. Plus I suspect some people just like to loudly rant a lot, especially when they can blame someone else for their problem and blow said problem up to the size of the moon. Those are the same people that yell at call center agents or the cashier that their local supermarket.

[Tamara Artis]

Hahaha I know... but I like to call them all addicted :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

[Ceka Cianci]

I used to love to go in the "SL is Down" threads and say stuff like.

You guys can't get in here?

 

That or if it was one of those things where you could stay in but if you logged out you couldn't get back in hehehe

Help!! Trapped in SL all bah mah self!!? \o/ gettin lonely :matte-motes-evil-invert:

 

hehehe

[Lexbot Sinister]

I'm gonna tell my husband to stop going to work because that Excel addiction is unhealthy.

[IvanBenjammin]

I'm addicted to sleeping. If I don't get at least 6 hours out of every 24 I go into withdrawal.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I spend a lot of time in SL but I work here.  I used to go to an office for 8 hours or more a day.  Now I log in to SL. I also enjoy socializing at night with people I know after my RL family has gone to bed because I am very much a night owl and don't need much sleep to feel good. It's sure better than watching TV.

I'm not addicted though.  There have been times due to RL issues I haven't been able to get on line for a month or more and I'm fine with it.  I might miss the people I know here, but its no more than I'd miss my RL friends if I didn't see them for a while.

 

[Ceka Cianci]

honestly,the world needs to stop overlaping definitions of things..

addiction should fall under the physical where obsession should fall under something you are not addicted to physically..

is a stalker addicted to someone or are they obsessed with someone?

is someone addicted to sports or are they obsessed with sports?

Pick a lane webster!

hehehe

 

[Dillon Levenque]

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Ceka Cianci wrote:

honestly,the world needs to stop overlaping definitions of things..

addiction should fall under the physical where obsession should fall under something you are not addicted to physically..

is a stalker addicted to someone or are they obsessed with someone?

is someone addicted to sports or are they obsessed with sports?

Pick a lane webster!

hehehe

 

---

 

Interesting that you mentioned sports. I do believe there are people who may not be obsessed with/addicted to sports, but are definitely obsessed with/addicted to gambling on sports. I frequently listen to a sports-centric radio station and I remember a call from someone who wanted to 'stump the DJ' (or hosts in this case—it was a talk show).

The caller said, "There are only two days each year when you can walk into a sports book (a place in which you can make bets on sporting events) and there are no professional or high level college games to bet on. What are the two days?". I of course had no idea. The two hosts of the talk show both knew instantly: the day before and the day after the major league baseball All Star game, which takes place each year on a Tuesday in July.  The league schedules no games on either the Monday before or the Wednesday after. There are no college games of any kind since it's July. The professional football, basketball, and hockey leagues are all in their offseason. Apparently those two days are very difficult for hardcore sports gamblers.

I presume, with the continuing increase in followers of the other form of football (the one everyone but the North Americans call football) that there will eventually be a wage-worthy event even during the All Star break. It won't be the English Premier League (the one that has the most traction in the US at the moment), though. I see their season starts in August and ends in May.

 

 

ETA: More to your excellent point, which I just went right by without even thinking: I do see a difference in what the two words mean, and in what they imply. I'd call someone who spends a great deal of time and money betting on sports an addict. Might not be physically addicted like someone on heroin, might not get physically ill if prevented from having his/her chance at the bet, but addicted just the same. A fan who has (or even worse, wears*) a collection of his/her team's jerseys, who knows who everyone on the team is dating or married to, who knows what they like to do in their time off, who knows exactly someone's rebounds per game/on base percentage/yards after catch: that fan is obsessed. 

*That his/her thing is skewed for me when it comes to wearing team jerseys. I think any male over the age of about 13 who wears a team jersey (one with his athlete of choice's name on the back) looks like an idiot. Oddly enough, I think females of any age who wear team jerseys just look cute.

 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

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Ceka Cianci wrote:

honestly,the world needs to stop overlaping definitions of things..

addiction should fall under the physical where obsession should fall under something you are not addicted to physically..

is a stalker addicted to someone or are they obsessed with someone?

is someone addicted to sports or are they obsessed with sports?

Pick a lane webster!

hehehe

 

---

 

Interesting that you mentioned sports. I do believe there are people who may not be obsessed with/addicted to sports, but are definitely obsessed with/addicted to gambling on sports. I frequently listen to a sports-centric radio station and I remember a call from someone who wanted to 'stump the DJ' (or hosts in this case—it was a talk show).

The caller said, "There are only two days each year when you can walk into a sports book (a place in which you can make bets on sporting events) and there are no professional or high level college games to bet on. What are the two days?". I of course had no idea. The two hosts of the talk show both knew instantly: the day before and the day after the major league baseball All Star game, which takes place each year on a Tuesday in July.  The league schedules no games on either the Monday before or the Wednesday after. There are no college games of any kind since it's July. The professional football, basketball, and hockey leagues are all in their offseason. Apparently those two days are very difficult for hardcore sports gamblers.

I presume, with the continuing increase in followers of the other form of football (the one everyone but the North Americans call football) that there will eventually be a wage-worthy event even during the All Star break. It won't be the English Premier League (the one that has the most traction in the US at the moment), though. I see their season starts in August and ends in May.

 

 

ETA: More to your excellent point, which I just went right by without even thinking: I do see a difference in what the two words mean, and in what they imply. I'd call someone who spends a great deal of time and money betting on sports an addict. Might not be physically addicted like someone on heroin, might not get physically ill if prevented from having his/her chance at the bet, but addicted just the same. A fan who has (or even worse, wears*) a collection of his/her team's jerseys, who knows who everyone on the team is dating or married to, who knows what they like to do in their time off, who knows exactly someone's rebounds per game/on base percentage/yards after catch: that fan is obsessed. 

*That his/her thing is skewed for me when it comes to wearing team jerseys. I think any male over the age of about 13 who wears a team jersey (one with his athlete of choice's name on the back) looks like an idiot. Oddly enough, I think females of any age who wear team jerseys just look cute.

 

 

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It was just something that just hit me out of the blue..i may have jumped a bit quick,but when something doesn't feel right,i tend to do that hehehe.

I think because nowadays meanings of words in a lot of areas are being skewed for guilt or just being spread out to wider areas and lose their meaning..

Media  and politics gets on a word and before you know it, people become numb to it's original meaning because of it's over use or push to other areas for shock value..It's made me very leery of  language nowadays..

It changes so fast with trending and internet in hand and media and politics ,corporations all knowing this.

So i decided to feed my curiosity and  give a look into it and did a search  using "addiction vs obsession" to see what came up and where the real differences were..

This made good sense about behavior to me when i read it..

 

The Difference Between an Obsession and an Addiction

"An obsession and an addiction can look the same but the root is very different.  For instance, you gamble every week spending approximately $10 on lottery tickets; gambling in this example is your behavior that can be obsessive, addictive or both.  The obsessive part of your behavior is gambling at the same store, on the same day, with the same numbers and if it is not done in this manner then you cannot win.  It does not matter if there is evidence of past wins; it only matters that things be done a certain way.  The addictive part of your behavior is dreaming of how the money will be spent, what will be bought, and who will benefit from the winnings.  The dreaming is active and an entire day can be spent just thinking about the possibilities.

 

Also this article helped ease my unease hehehe

Passion, Obsession, Addiction - Difficulties Describing Maladaptive Behavior

[Poenald Palen]

I am not sure about addiction and SL. I have heard there is a HUGE turn over rate. So I would assume it becomes part of an identity building thing, like any involved social hobby. If you are hanging at a club for musical instruments or playing guitar when you should have done house chores you would assume they are addictions as well. I would say that it is because house chores are not fun.

In fact, if rich people hire people to do house chores and then spend time writing letters to family and listening to music, are they thought to be addicts to writing and listening to music? Addicted to fun, or laziness? Phobia about dirt or organizing things, maybe fear of monsters that live in the closet or demonic possesed vaccum cleaners?

So, there needs to be more clarification I think. But, you mention creators?

I am betting people who build get frustrated and are forced to log off when objects start bouncinig back to the place you just moved them from, textures just seem to not work (white narrow bits on some colors...why does jpeg200? do this!? it's all math) AND in fact, if you are addicted to building then start to learn quanturnian math....wait, qauturnion? quatornion? :matte-motes-frown: :matte-motes-sour: :matte-motes-angry: ARGGGGGHAHAHAHAHAHAGGAAGHGGHGAHG hahaha ah ah ah hH HHAHA HAHA  AGARAGA.....

 

See, it works pretty well!

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Addiction to SL would be just a type of "internet addiction".  Internet addiction is not listed in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published in 2013, which is the  American Psychiatric Association's classification and diagnostic tool. In the United States the DSM serves as a universal authority for psychiatric diagnosis. Treatment recommendations, as well as payment by health care providers, are often determined by DSM classifications. 

I remember hearing a news story about the debate over this when they were updating the manual last year.  However so far, studies have found that 86% of study subjects that might be considered addicted also exhibited other diagnosable mental disorders. That is a huge number as these things go and it could well be the remaining 14% also have other mental disorders but hide those disorders better or their diagnosis was beyond the scope of the studies.  More studies are being done, however if this holds true SL in and of itself couldn't be considered addictive.  People who appear to be addicted to it have mental issues already.

[Poenald Palen]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

Addiction to SL would be just a type of "internet addiction".  Internet addiction is not listed in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published in 2013, which is the  American Psychiatric Association's classification and diagnostic tool. In the United States the DSM serves as a universal authority for psychiatric diagnosis. Treatment recommendations, as well as payment by health care providers, are often determined by DSM classifications. 

I remember hearing a news story about the debate over this when they were updating the manual last year.  However so far, studies have found that 86% of study subjects that might be considered addicted also exhibited other diagnosable mental disorders. That is a huge number as these things go and it could well be the remaining 14% also have other mental disorders but hide those disorders better or their diagnosis was beyond the scope of the studies.  More studies are being done, however if this holds true SL in and of itself couldn't be considered addictive.  People who appear to be addicted to it have mental issues already.

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This reminds me of nicotine in cigarettes and schizophrenia. It is almost like a medication, though it causes other problems.

People do find other distractions, they move from one to another but we also need to understand that SL ISN'T addictive really, it is far far LESS addictive than the net in general. Why? There is a HUGE retention problem!

NOTE: Time of the essense? Please, skip to the next bold text for my conclusion, if wishing to burn up a few more minutes and possibly get a few hints at why I say it, read the below stuff.

It does lend itself to fantasy and escapism. Those things are even used in recent studies to do with pain. If the person is distracted they feel less pain during a surgical operation. So, yes I can imagine people use the net to feel better and escape the pain the feel. BUT, the net has other things that do this with more addiction. It is like saying licorice is addictive, I imagine some love it. But more are into cigarettes or alcohol, so it is ignored.

Once again, I am not seekign this and sciting it, sorry. fascinating stuff out there and SL has so many facets to it that it ends up popping into ones mind while reading these things.

Sl doesn't force you to use it. No government agency requires you to use it to understand what a citizen should (law, latest things to protect onesself from things like recalls and fruad) so it is almost the most innocent.

But, there is a worry that if one has enough information about usage of SL and uses it to the disadvantage of the users and not worrying about what happens to them...are they evil? This is something google founders used. It is hard to find things out and use them, but considering the life of a customer it may not be harmful to mentally abuse them (to ones profit line) but is harmful to the customer after and during the interaction. I think this is actually what people mean by it.

But what should a company do? Should they force thier users to hate it, to log off and go away? Sadly, lag and failures may have done this sort of thing lol. You could argue this then creates ONLY a population of people with certain mental traits or features (disorders even) that causes them to synergistically enhance addiction and they loosen thier pursestrings before finally leaving SL for a while.

I think of it as being addictive to some because they find community in some form or fashion. This means that all the corporate weirdness about bottom line only sort of becomes evil on some level, so you see SL incorporating sociology and so on when they engineer it. It is maybe debatable weather they are evil or not, and I haven't researched it enough at all (I just read news and such, no big deep study stuff and I am not qualified to do so) to really say weather it is a danger or not. I feel that it does warrant some deep thinking and research about how people interact in virtual worlds but sort of feel like it will be forever useless because so many studies are on average people. The demographics of each virtual world are maybe average, I doubt it, but they change once they get here. Here is not average, it is NOT the world. But, it has so many community type of elements and has a visual and audio tied to it. The eyes are very very very big influencers on ones mind and memory. The interaction also enhances ones memory I bet, but i fyou are passive here you may float through a day and not care. See, it is hard to say. You don't have to engage, you can wonder with no care and it is passive like a TV show you dont' really want to watch but are bored. So many specifics that make it hard to tell, so it is best for each to try as hard as they can to look after themselves and maybe even track or take written notes of what happens, inlist another to maybe watch if you have trouble and want to change?

[Tari Landar]

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Ceka Cianci wrote:

That or if it was one of those things where you could stay in but if you logged out you couldn't get back in hehehe

Help!! Trapped in SL all bah mah self!!? \o/ gettin lonely :matte-motes-evil-invert:

 

hehehe

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Random thought..a bit late to the thread....

A few years ago(ok more than a few, probably more like 5) there was some nasty downtime in sl. Hubby was logged in, but knew if he logged out, he couldn't get back in, the rest of us..that is, a group of friends and I) weren't able to login at all. He called me while we waited for the downtime to cease and sang that song in my ear non-stop until the problem was fixed...I have fond memories of that song..

As for the OP...creators are likely to be the least addicted, as they are busy doing something else that almost prevents the kind of addiction you're speaking of. Even those who are able to make a decent living wage(I was one for some time, and it kept all our rl bills paid for a good long while, but other things like my classes and our homeschooling took priority).