Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

There are numerous ways to use virtual worlds, either for professional reasons or just for fun. In the article Avatar II: The Hospital moderators use Second Life as a training ground to prepare their nurses for the worst case scenario. Other professional uses include developing virtual worlds on private databases where employees can use their avatars go to meetings. Some people turn to virtual worlds just to enjoy themselves and reinvent themselves in a virtual world where anything they want they can have. In the article No Budget, No Boundaries: It's the Real You Eric Spangenberg, a consumer psychologist, mentioned that a virtual world is "the newest manifestation of how people live vicariously: if I can't afford a Bentley, my avatar can."

A big pro of virtual worlds is that it allows people who are shy or have a certain medical condition to express themselves in a way they normally wouldn't. Meeting can be held in virtual worlds where employees from around the world enter and participate. Another pro of virtual worlds is that it allows people to make virtual prototypes thus reducing the cost of making physical models. For example when you have a meeting about a new building you want built in a certain neighborhood; you can actually construct it there and see how it would look.

Although virtual worlds can be a good thing they can also be used for bad. Since it's located on the internet anyone can basically do anything. When this happens, children might be exposed to material that they shouldn't be seeing. Since virtual worlds are on the internet everything is anonymous which may also pose a problem. People can pretend to be someone they're not and pull off scams without getting caught.

I think virtual worlds foster creativity because services like Second Life allows people to recreate places they've been or want to be. It allows people to recreate situations that they could get into in real life and allows them to find solutions to these problems. Virtual worlds allows people to express themselves and dress their avatars in a way they see fit and lets their avatars go to places they like just to meet people and have a good time.

I think the future of virtual worlds might be something more realistic, where the individual themselves can be involved. This would be practical for training people especially for military like task. I feel that virtual worlds now are more like a video game on a computer because you do everything from a keyboard and a mouse. In the future I think you would be able to go into a room of some sort and you'll be surrounded with holograms and stuff where you can carry out whatever you want to do.