My kids played it for a while but we weened them off of it (they call it WoW for short). My wife has gotten into Facebook games and that takes up most of the time she is on the computer. She says it is for the social environment of chatting with others worldwide while playing. My son also is now addicted to Second Life and I'm going to look into what's going on there too.

I spend my day on the comptuer - but it's for work. I have to be involved in customer issues, fixing problems, doing customer conference calls and so on - and I work from home. I may be part of the "enabling" since they see me online and use that as a way "grown up people are".

So, I think we need to grab these horses by the reins and do others things with them. Invite them out to do "real" things rather than simulated-world things. WoW, Facebook, Second Life - they are computer-housed "worlds" that are realistic to some degree in terms of offering "easy" social environments. You don't have to get dressed up and "go out" to a social setting - it's as easy as rolling up a chair to a desk and there you are. I also look at them as "fantasy" and "daytime dreams" because they are not natural environments that people have lived in for centuries. In other words - they are relationships that take no work. People take the easy way out and rather than spend time with loved-ones talking and living - they go into a fantasy world where it's easier and no judgements occur. People would spend less time online if we had to endure the emotions and feedback that real life offers.

In the real world - you cannot just get up and walk over to your neighbors house and hang out without judgement (not entirely socially acceptable unless great friends). But in fantasy worlds, you are "in there" right away without any real effort at all. Life now has three states - sleep, online and awake.

Gotta go - my 14 son just woke up and walked over to the computer and turned it on and I have to be that he's going right into Second Life...