Virtual worlds are undoubtedly a lot of fun to use and be a part of, it is very common, especially for an adolescent or young adult to come home at the end of the day and unwind by playing video games. There is a huge selection of games and worlds alike to enter and explore to your hearts content, whether it be playing a "mission" or "level" of a game, or just going around in a form of free roam world and doing whatever you want. The less common part that comes in is the cases in which virtual worlds and video games are taken to a whole other level where players actually live an alter-ego within the game. This raises some interesting questions, such as "could excessive use of virtual worlds cause any sort of problem?" or "where will this be us in 10 or 20 years?"
This screenshot is one of mine from earlier this semester, and it shows the avatar selection screen that comes up when you first download the game "Second Life". Avatars like this are the base content of virtual worlds, that meaning every user has one to control, and in some cases completely live vicariously through. As you can see, the avatars range in gender, sex, height and ethnicity, and are even further customizable from there where people can add smaller details to make the avatar be exactly what they want it to be.
So what's wrong with having a little fun playing video games? Nothing. The issue comes into play when people start to spend relentless hours in games like this, and in some cases for not very virtuous reasons. One of the articles provided for this assignment mentioned that a university professor from Korea admitted to using a virtual world in which he controlled an avatar that was a little girl. Although this instance was harmless, and the professor did not have any bad intentions, this still serves as a perfect example of how you may have no idea who is really behind the avatar you see on the screen when playing in virtual worlds. This could lead to any number of harmful encounters, such as someone using a little girl avatar just as the Korean professor did, but doing so in an attempt to make contact with younger players in the game as if they were one of them. There are endless numbers of possibilities, some harmless, but some the opposite.
As technology advances, we are lead to further potential issues. The newest age of technology, including Microsoft HoloLens and Samsung VR bring the virtual experience to a whole new level, making it seem less virtual and more like actual reality. Along with this comes new potential downfalls; for example, I mentioned in my last post the question along the lines of "will there ever come a day when people prefer to live a second life in a virtual reality headset over the real world, because any wants or desires can simply be programmed into the game instead of worked for and earned in the real world?". To me this is a scary question, because a virtual reality headset can yield a result that is incredibly close to actual reality, so much so that it would literally be like living in another world.
For example, some commonly sought after "dream cars" such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Rolls Royce and so on are things that a strong majority of people can never attain even after years and years of work, but with a virtual reality headset, you could have all three mere seconds after you decided that you want one, and the driving experience would be shockingly realistic. My point here is that the question posed is "scary" because the answer seems obvious; why work your ass off for 20 years to buy a million dollar car when you could just have one as soon as you put a VR headset over your face? It seems to me that the answer would be the same for any desire one might have, and since a VR headset can literally produce an entire world where you can do absolutely anything you want, why be confined to the real world?
The future of technology has a lot in store for us, there is no doubt about that. My only query is the potential that technology is advancing at a faster rate than we are ready for; after all it is only within the last two decades that the internet and computer based technology has expanded to become as popular as it is today. Could we possibly be going a little too fast? These avatars that we use in games today and in virtual reality are meant to represent us, but it seems we are not far away from removing "virtual" from the equation.
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