TV tonight: Does Happiness Live In Cyberspace?

Tonight's final episode of the BBC 2 series The Happiness Formula examines whether people can find happiness online. I am called upon to side with the Yes camp (demonstrating my evidence by taking presenter Mark Easton through 3D virtual world Second Life), while Robert Putnam takes the apparent opposing view. Here's the article that covers what'll be covered.

Snip:

Aleks Krotoski, a video games expert, says the internet offers new possibilities: "These virtual spaces are capable of creating and engendering happiness between people.

"There's so much socially in these places now that it is no longer just a person sitting in front of the computer zoned out and going off into the nanosphere.

"It's about finding other people and interacting with them. It's very much about a place to go to events, meet people, to hang out, to do ridiculous things and just to chat."

Ms Krotoski argues that these games show how the internet could develop in the future.

"I can imagine that this kind of thing is what the internet is going to be like in the future. Instead of just being simple static pages, it will be like a 3-dimensional space.

"These aren't places that are just swords and sorcery and people wandering around with Orks. These are places that actually look very much like the real world."

Check it out at 7pm!