KEY POINTS:
Don't know about you, but I have enough trouble fitting everything I want to do into my real life, let alone a virtual one.
Don't get me wrong, I know you can't stop progress. I love my email and internet as much as the next person. I'd rather
be lined up against a wall and branded with tennis balls than be without email for a day.
YouTube is hilarious and Myspace is great for research, as well as being fun, but, again, it's hard enough finding the time to hook up with friends who live down the road without buddying up with potential friends out there in the wild chrome yonder.
Last week's TimeOut gaming special was intriguing and scary. At times, reading about Second Life - the online "world" with its own currency and a population as big as New Zealand - was enough for me to scoff, "Get a life".
You might have also read about World of Warcraft, the multiplayer online game that has around 7.5 million players and is the virtual Dungeons and Dragons.
WoW is like the gaming equivalent of the Olympics, only you don't have to meet qualifying standards. Although, if you're going to be good at this game then you have to do the hard yards.
When you venture into WoW as a novice beware of taking on an "elite monster" too early. That's like Beatrice Faumuina coming to blows with one of those perky synchronised swimmers at the opening ceremony.
I have to say, I've never been into video games. Even though it was novel back in the 80s, I tired of the klutzy ZX-81 quickly; the Commodore 64 was a little more fun; and Astro Wars was great because it was instant.
I wasn't that good at Spacies because I didn't devote enough time to hanging out at the Spacies parlour. The most time I spent playing the 20c games was on a cool, table-top version of Gyruss at a posh New Plymouth restaurant of yesteryear called Julianna's.
Nowadays, I'm fond of Singstar and love car racing games - could play them all night if I had a PS3 or an Xbox - because the need for virtual speed is addictive.
So I can understand WoW players' obsession.
However, Second Life is more disturbing. If you're a resident of this lame new world you can create a brand spanking version of yourself (called an avatar) and do anything you like. Bloody great fun, right? Well, yeah, for a time, but wouldn't you rather go and play can-a-hole golf with your mates, or meet at your local, or, hell, I don't know, go ice-skating or something?
There are other similar online worlds, like Habbo Hotel, where you can hang out with friends and listen to bands. It's fun (although the conversation is a little inane at times), and the characters on screen (that's you) have a cartoonishness about them that's cute.
Second Life is more serious. Get this, a virtual riot broke out when the right-wing National Front set up an office in one neighbourhood. Let's see how long a National Front office would last in the city of Ironforge in WoW.
And it hasn't taken long for high profile people, like politician Hilary Clinton, and Big Business to jump on board Second Life. Great. They invade our real life and then we get the virtual version, too. Well, if you ditched your imaginary life and got a real one then you wouldn't have to put up with them twice.
You're probably thinking I'm a killjoy. Or, don't knock something until you've tried it properly. Oh well. I've got a life, and have no intention of creating a new one.
What would be useful is if one of those bright sparks, like a computer programmer from Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, could actually invent a real second world. With the way polar bears are drowning and tsunamis are swamping small island nations we're going to need a place to flee in 50 years or so. That'd be handy.