Modeling reality with virtual worlds

It’s tremendously peculiar how virtual worlds emerged into their own world of reality and can be used for multiple reasons. People can use the virtual world as a form of escape for their “first world” reality, and can buy materialistic items for thousands of virtual dollars for under a hundred real world dollars. Based on the CNN article, In 2009, On the virtual realm social site, There.come, 70,000 There bucks were equivalent to only about $40.00, which seems like an in-expense when comparing it to how many items the “avatars” are able to purchase online. However, cons may include addiction away from reality, and the obsession of the alternate ego within the Second Life virtual reality. The chief executive of There.com said that there was actually an increase of purchases made on the website during the recession. People couldn’t afford real life items so they were letting out their shopping addiction habits online. Pros that exist within the virtual realm is the ability to use the site as a form of communication between a large group of people. For example, the article, ” Going to the virtual office in Second Life”, Tutton writes in 2009, in the height of the recession, because of high travel budgets, companies used Second Life, a virtual community, as a meeting “office”, where each employee can build their personal avatar and attend the meeting as their alternate egos. As technology advances, there is a wider area of companies that use Second Life to hold meetings, educational lessons, gov. agencies, and training sessions. At the time this article was written, there were already 14 major companies in England using virtual communities as innovative form of brainstorming meetings and announcements. With time, the virtual reality realm has only expanded with the creation of video games, glasses and the HTC Vive, which is a portable camera head set that allows you to look into a virtual reality world, where you are able to play games, and watch movies. The future of virtual reality is a battle between fantasy and facts because as there are many theories that eventually a human being will be able to upload their brain into a computer and physically travel into a virtual world, it seems ludicrous and awfully frightening to imagine a world where computers run “the earth.”