Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Imagine working a 9-5, eating your usual 12:30 lunch and attending a 3 o’clock meeting with the marketing department all from the comfort of your home. Well, take a gander! As companies grow with eagerness to please employees, work-life balance seems to be one of the more popular privileges. But maybe a mother struggling with newborn babies isn’t truly ready to leave them to commute to the office doing a 9-5… that’s where the virtual worlds come to play. That mother could be feeding her kid in one hand, and attend an important conference with the other. To paint a real picture of this occurrence, CNN’s Mark Tutton published an article called “Going to the virtual office in Second Life” where he discusses the implications of digitizing the modern brick-and-mortar office. He notes, “Virtual community Second Life is seeing to tap into that market by creating a new tool that allows businesses to have virtual meetings on their own computer networks”.  And this is just one of the many ways virtual worlds provide use for us. We have the ability to bring this technology to classrooms and recreate the classroom experience from the internship, or even on commute to your second job. It provides an outlet for shy students to present themselves the opportunity to participate with a character just like them. Shy people in general will have the ability to socialize through characters and perhaps develop friendships or a “second life” on the Internet as they wish to. Of course, virtual worlds can provide the location and convenience of anywhere, any time – but of course, even with its endless social networking, there are cons.

As with anything that has trouble being regulated on the Internet, the exposure to risky users, hackers and criminals is nothing short in this situation. While chief executive of Second Life, Philip Rosedale, argues that there is there no evidence backing up these dangers, Representative Edward K. Markey had a few questions. The Washington Post published an article exhibiting these inquiries, “Could Second Life be used as a place to launder money? Are children safe in online worlds? Are there churches? Are you making any money?” (The Washington Post). And this does hold some thought… how are we so sure that nothing is going on in these virtual worlds? After all, your identity could be falsified. As with any platform involving social networks, it’s safe to say that it is not foolproof to assume that nothing goes on in these virtual worlds.

However, it’s safe to say that the creativity that sparks in these virtual communities is endless. Because it provides zones of belonging, users are a lot less shy to be themselves or provide a persona that may not exist prior to the community. With this comes content. People can become inspired to write stories about what they see or experience; in addition, users might feel at ease discussing ideas because they don’t have to put a face to a purpose. And as these audiences grow, the power of technology will allow virtual worlds to extend beyond the 3D simulations. Virtual reality is already available to the public, and as we implement social platforms and networks on these headsets, virtual worlds will intensify these connections. The future is bright for virtual worlds.