Virtual Worlds

I had heard of using avatars and virtual worlds but had never been interested enough to explore.  It is great to have the opportunity to glimpse another reality and can see why people (millions of them!) can be caught up with Second Life and WoW but I just don't have the time to explore them.  Exit Reality is an interesting 'add-on' for social networkers - I've heard that Facebook is now the third largest 'country' in the world.  Probably a generational thing, but the word 'friend' is thrown around alot in the 'virtual' world and I am choosy about who I call 'friends' - wouldn't like to come across any students in an alternate reality, real reality is enough for me.  I can see that Second Life may be an opportunity to try out new opportunities in an educational sense, but, personally, the virtual world is not for me (and was blocked on the school computers anyway).