The topic of today's blog is "Virtual Worlds." But before we start talking about virtual worlds, we have to ask ourselves the question "What are Virtual Worlds?" Virtual Worlds are online communities that exist only on the internet. Users can interact with each other on these virtual worlds. These worlds can have a genre of being a game or even to the point of being business related. When I saw this topic of virtual world, I immediately knew what I'm going to write about. I'm going to write about "Second Life" which I have just recently heard of in my cis2200 class. It's amazing on how I only just found out about "Second Life" since it have been out for around 5-6 years and it is popular among everyone. Second Life is a online 3D virtual world where users can interact and socialize with each other. Now it have been developed to the point where businesses are going virtual.
There are many pros and cons of virtual worlds. Virtual worlds can also foster creativity which I will get to in the next sentence. According to the article, "Toys with a Second Life" by Brian Hindo, companies are making little plush animals that come with codes that activate an online version of the toy in a virtual world. This is an example of how virtual world foster creativity. You would think to yourself, who would spent money on virtual things? Apparently in this case, people do spent money on things that they can't physically touch. This lead to the article, "Going to the virtual office in Second Life" by Mark Tutton, where businesses can have virtual offices. Parmar recently held a meeting with 12 technical leaders from across Europe and Asia by using the new Sametime 3D instead of flying everyone to a central location. This will show the pros of virtual worlds since it allow businesses to save money, time and energy to have international meetings in virtual worlds. However, there are also the negative effect of virtual worlds, since from time to time, we would have these "addicts" that neglect their real life and focus entirely on their virtual life. My friend told me that he read an article that an Asian couple neglected their nine months baby just to be in a cybercafe on Second Life taking care of their virtual baby. Of course, the real nine months baby died due to neglects. It's amazing to see how people can just throw away their real life for a virtual life.
Sources cited:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_53/b4065091329372.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/index.html
Virtual worlds offer a range of limitless possibilities and will definitely have a major impact on society during the next few years. There has to be some moderation though so we can prevent "addicts" like you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that virtual worlds can foster creativity but in the end we all can't sacrifice our real lives for it. Real life is always more important than virtual life.
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