Moe: "Why am I payin’ $14.95 a month for this?"
The definition of virtual reality comes, naturally, from the definitions for both ‘virtual’ and ‘reality’. ‘Virtual’ is near and ‘reality’ is what we experience as human beings. So the term ‘virtual reality’ basically means ‘near-reality’. This could, of course, mean anything but it usually refers to a specific type of reality emulation.
So then, what is a virtual reality? In technical terms, it can describe a computer generated environment which can be explored and interacted with, by a person. That person becomes part of this virtual world or is immersed within this environment and whilst there, is able to manipulate or perform a series of actions. Of course gaming sites, such as World of Warcraft define this genre of technology, but it also includes all strands of social media sites - Facebook, Interpals, Tumblr, eHarmony, etc. - where our sense of self is able to be altered. The aim of all these communities, is the same, and is what draws them together as one technology –their purpose is always for a natural, free-flowing form of interaction which will result in a memorable experience.
Despite a wide variety of uses for this technology, especially in entertainment and social circles; there is a lot of perceived negativity to it also, which has unfortunately, often turned out to be true. As such, there are people who view virtual reality with little enthusiasm, those who fear it, and those who dismiss it as a passing fad; seeing it to have no practical application in the real world.
Jeremy Bailenson: “In this world in which you can transform the self and have any experience that an animator can fathom, what are the consequences to the self? What are the consequences to society?”
Paul Solman: “Is that as radical a change as your language suggests?”
The answer to this is, yes, of course it is.
We assume that virtual reality is a benign influence upon our lives and is not likely to cause any problems. But this is a form of technology which is developing all the time and as a result, can throw up problems which had not been previously considered. There are physical problems which are due to poor ergonomics and then there are psychological issues, with our offline relationships. Then there are also moral and ethical concerns about this type of technology.
These social media and virtual communities are impacting upon our lives in ways we could not have imagined before. Social media realms allow us to create virtual social circles that are beginning to mimic how we interact in our daily lives – these virtual communities are developing to comply with and BECOME the social norm.
There is certainly no shortage of people studying the impact that virtual worlds are having on us as individuals and as a society. According to research by professor Jeremy Bailenson of Stanford University, half a billion people spend about 20 hours a week “wearing” avatars*. You could even go so far to say that people wear avatars in their various social communities as well – representations of their physical selves in the virtual world. We have a second sense of self that we never had access to before.
Another problem often resulting from online and virtual realities is time. Today more than ever more and more people are becoming immersed into virtual realities, and online worlds, that they don’t even realise how long they are spending interacting through them. I have to admit that there have been times where I will jump online to look at something and myself get so immersed in the virtual networks of the internet that I will look up and realise it suddenly got dark, and I wasted a number of hours looking at things and talking to people, while around me the world goes by. It’s an awful feeling to lose time.
Spending loads of time in these virtual worlds and being more connected to people than ever before has some consequences. Relationships are becoming different since the advent of social communities; and there is a lot of debate about how these virtual communities impact our offline relationships. Just look around next time you are out anywhere, and not surprisingly people are buried in their phones, tablets, laptops – making sure they don’t miss the latest post on Facebook, newest Tweet. We are more social online, and that is a good thing, but really, at what cost to us was this? I think that it is causing us to have less to do with actual social interactions offline. I cannot say that the rise in technology has been the only change to attribute to the decline in social skills, but seeing everyone depending on their phones like it is a limb, is quite shocking, and really makes me understand why people choose to stay away from it all. We lose out on the present when we let the virtual community win.
And then there are the people we meet online, and interact with. How does this impact upon us? Can we really claim that relationships forged in these online communities are any… less real? The people are real, they are making real connections, but the depth of these relationships, might be more limited. Sure, you can feel connected to someone online, but how connected? And do these online relationships strengthen or weaken our relationships in the physical world? In person, would this relationship be different? There are so many questions, and the answers are not so simple.
No matter how you see it, participating in virtual communities makes our interactions more public than ever before. So much so that our interactions in the physical world seem more private by default, but in the online world, that sense of privacy is immediately dissolved and makes anything said potentially very public and preserved. And it’s taken time for many people to come to terms with that.
We know that more and more time is being spent in these virtual worlds. And we know that this time spent has the ability to either negatively impact or positively impact us in our daily lives. We use these technologies for gaming, socialising, shopping, banking and work. Technology has sufficiently crept into every nook and cranny of our lives. From the way we brush our teeth to the way we move about town to the way we interact with people, it’s a part of who we are. Communities are communities, whether online or offline. And virtual worlds are proving to be very real.
*Avatars are the virtual representation of a person in a virtual world, and these virtual worlds include everything from massive multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life to Farmville
