According to google.com, a virtual world is a “genre of online community that often takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment.” Users can interact with each other and use and create objects. Virtual worlds allow users to be creative and create any type of fantasy world they want to be in. Virtual worlds are a representation of reality and are simpler than the real world.
Virtual world have many benefits. Virtual worlds are much more creative, and very personal. They can be used for business purposes and users can virtually meet each other if they are very distant from each other. Virtual worlds are also very good for training purposes. Usually to save labor costs, companies have training videos, where new employees can be trained in a virtual classroom. This makes the learning process very easy. Also, through virtual worlds you can go to places that you have never seen before. One time I saw my brother play some video game on his PS3 (I forgot the name), the character was walking on foot through the streets of Manhattan. I thought it was really cool because everything was so detailed, it was unbelievable! Dave Itzkoff writes in his article, “I’ve been in that Club, Just not in Real Life,” about real life examples of people who have visited the lower east side through virtual worlds. I think that is why virtual worlds are so cool; you can visit places you have never seen before!!
There are also several disadvantages to virtual worlds. Virtual worlds can become addicting and they can take over your life because they are very time consuming. You might lose your friends and family because you have minimal face to face interaction Virtual world users can do illegal things and make the avatars do improper things. In Saki Knafo’s article, “In room 100, It’s Sid & Nancy all over again,” the user tried to kill somebody. Another disadvantage of virtual worlds is that computer savvy people will find it very hard to navigate a virtual world.
Virtual worlds are eye openers. People get to see things they have never seen before. Virtual worlds are going to be the most popular upcoming Social Networking sites in the future. They will be a very competitive field of creativity. People will be competing with each other to make the best and most “real” looking virtual worlds. People will be perfecting their ideas on how they can improve their virtual world. I think virtual worlds in the future will become even more REAL looking. I think that is crazy because we might not know the difference between virtual worlds and the real world if everything starts becoming more “real” like.
Yes, I agree that virtual worlds can be addictive and I was one of those people that got addicted to them. It's a good way to pass time but there should be a limit to how much time you should spent time in these virtual worlds as it takes you away from your friends and families.
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