Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds have become popular within the online community.  They show a virtual 3D format reality to users, giving them the feeling of visiting or doing a specific activity, or place, without even moving away from their computers. Depending on theme, every website has their features and attractions, people enjoy the environment but they have to pay real money to get virtual money and spend.  It is amazing that the virtual world is being used in many different ways and fields.  It is used for educational, professional, or entertainment purposes among others.

These websites give the online community a diversity of activities and situations for entertainment. People can hang out at a bar without actually going to a real one, according to “I’ve Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life” by Dave Itzkoff in The New York Times. The article presents a website called Virtual Lower East Side (vles.com) that shows a recreation of the lower east side of Manhattan. Also, virtual worlds are used for educational purposes, as reported by Stephanie Simon in “Avatar II: The Hospital”. Hospitals, medical schools, and health foundations are using this website that is a recreation of a hospital emergency room. This website is designed to train nurses on taking quicker decisions under pressure. The professional field is touched by virtual worlds as well. Big companies, like IBM, are using virtual training rooms to get all their employees together, without paying for travel expenses in accordance to “IBM's Virtual World for its Employees: IBM Learning Programs Get a 'Second Life'” by Ed Frauenheim Workforce Management

Virtual Worlds are being used more and more, but what are the pros and cons? As I mentioned above, there are many positive ways of using this virtual reality. They can give the online community diverse virtual environments with more accessible entertainment options, companies can save in expenses, nurses can train in an emergency room simulation etc. But the fact that these virtual worlds are used may bring lack of social interpersonal activities, and less employment opportunities in the market, overall. Social interpersonal activities are very important for society development. If people interact with their computers only, the future of society may be affected. Besides, with people not going to an actual place to hang out, schools not using trainers to educate students, companies not having the necessity of bringing people together for training may be a sufficient cause to reducing staff.

There is no doubt that Virtual Worlds foster creativity. It is completely revolutionary the way of accessing to a virtual reality that a decade ago, it was seen only in science fiction movies. I think, the Virtual Worlds are going to be highly used in the future, and also, there will be at least one virtual reality for every single activity that we currently do.