Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

What if you could put yourself in a virtual reality, a virtual world?  Well, nowadays, it is possible with the help of countless websites such as SecondLife.com, There.com and IMVU.com.  These sites allow users to build a personal identity in a virtual world by creating avatars of themselves.  In these arenas within the site, they use their avatars to navigate and even have the option of spending money to purchase a variety of items.  However, these sites can act as more than a game.  In fact, as found in the article "Avatar II:  The Hospital", virtual worlds like those found in Second Life are allowing for online simulations that help train nurses and see their reactions and decisions made in cases of emergencies through virtual drills.  Aside from this, they have also been used for company conferences and meetings  as indicated in "Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life".  This article illustrates how companies are tapping into the virtual world by holding meetings there, which not only saves money and time, but allows for a place to generate ideas due to engaging environment that is offered and the extensive ability to collaborate.  Additionally, the article "Naughty Auties Battle Autism With Virtual Interaction" explains how using virtual worlds can help those suffering from autism as well as their friends and family "practice social interaction and find information about the condition".  They have the ability to test the waters in this "comfort zone" so they can feel more comfortable intreating with others out of virtual reality.

So what are the pros and cons of virtual worlds?  To start off, virtual worlds have shown to be very beneficial in the sense that one can communicate, collaborate, and interact with any other avatar that is in that same world.  This cheaper and more time efficient way of connecting has brought about ways to hold meetings, recreate iconic hotels (like the Hotel Chelsea found in "In Room 100, It's Sid and Nancy All Over Again"), help individuals dealing with autism practice social interaction, share information, and even go shopping.  The possibilities are truly endless.  However, they are not without its flaws.  For one thing, it is a virtual reality and some individuals might get lost in it.  Although a lot of what is in that world seems "real", it is still computer generated.  One may create their avatar to look like them, but the individual is not truly the avatar.  In this sense, they may lose their sense of reality and associate themselves more with virtual reality.  In addition, this may also cause a feeling of isolation for, even though there are other avatars in the simulation that one may communicate with, it still cannot replace face-to-face interaction.  Finally, on a more technical scale, as stated in the article "For Health-Care Facilities, Practice in the Virtual World Can Have Major Benefits", "the online world isn't perfect...many students have older computers that can't support the Second Life system, or live in rural areas with iffy Internet connections".  The technological barrier could take away the experience of what virtual worlds can offer and in the case of health-care, the nurses need to know that it is not a game for them.  They have lives to save and they need to be able to navigate the drills as best as possible.

As for the future of virtual worlds, I think the possibilities are endless.  I think that virtual worlds could really be a training facility for other job careers, such as nurses, police officers, firefighters, bankers, etc.  From what I read in the health-care article, I think using this sort of technology to help train employees could be very useful and not to mention a money and time saver.  Additionally, I think it could possibly be used for classroom purposes.  For example, with online classes, most of the time, there are no face-to-face meetings unless there are exams and generally everything is submitted online.  Setting up a virtual world for that particular class could possibly allow for it to be more interactive and a more creative environment to learn.