Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds can be used as an escape from the stress of everyday life. It would be simpler than the real world because an avatar is used to move around and handle things while the real person sits at home manipulating the situation. Virtual worlds can be used leisurely to become a new person. People may not be satisfied with their love life or may feel isolated in reality. Virtual worlds gives this person a facade to hide behind. It makes any shy, quiet person a macho casanova and nobody would know the difference.

In other instances, virtual worlds can be used for a corporate setting, as described by Mark Tutton, writer for CNN. In his article, he stated that "Second Life is seeking to tap into the [corporate world] by creating a new tool that allows businesses to have virtual meetings on their own computer networks." However, with this innovation, there are pros and cons. Tutton explained that having virtual conferences can help diversify the meeting because it would be easier to chat with people from around the world online, than having to fly people out to a central location. It also makes collaboration easier because there's no problem with different time zones online.

When there are pros to an incident, cons develop as well. Tutton specified one con as losing "the kind of impromptu "water cooler" conversations that occur in a real workplace, where colleagues can share information they may have forgotten to communicate in meetings." This is an important loss because someone might forget an important issue after the meeting is done and there's no way to pass it on.

Virtual worlds can foster creativity in different ways. It can be something simple as creating an avatar to something more dynamic like creating an entire world. In Saki Knafo's NY Times article, Michael Brown expressed hs creativity by recreating the Hotel Chelsea as a setting in Second Life. Many people were unhappy with the newly renovated Hotel Chelsea and Brown decided to help people who wanted to relive the experience. He used old pictures to reconstruct the building and made it into a shrine of its former self. His creativity is only one example of how virtual worlds exemplify the potential of anyone to be innovational.

In the future, virtual worlds will become more realistic. People would use it to create lasting relationships and maybe even venture out from behind their facades to have real relationships. Maybe there would be a 4D world, if its possible. With creation open to the public, anything is possible.