iggyono, very nicely and succinctly put. i have had over 200 students do a series of classes in SL, and as far as I am aware, basically none of them have staid in SL beyond the classes. From an educational perspective, this is not a problem for me in that my students enjoy and look forward to (mostly) the lessons we design for them, but once the lessons are over, they most definitely do not look to SL for their social networking.

Tetaru, as a parent with a 21 year old I fully concur that kids between 18-mid-20s (or even later these days) on the whole want to be 'out there' experiencing real life (parties and all), and then talking about it with their peers on sites where they can post text and pictorial records of the 'real' them (although we all know that what gets posted on social networking sites like Facebook is indeed also often a carefully crafted 'identity'). People in this age group haven't seen enough of RL to want to spend much time in a virtual world like SL. I have traveled extensively over my 5 decades of existence and lived overseas for many years. I still love to travel and see new people and places, but I also immensely enjoy experiencing new (and familiar) things/places/people in SL. I think it is because of my rich life experience that I enjoy SL so much.