Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds is an amazing form of new media that allows users to create self-representative avatars to put in a virtual environment, where they can interact with with other users from around the city, country, or world. The aforementioned virtual environment can be modeled after a real-life counterpart, from a tropical island, to the LES, to the Rayburn House Office Building.

So far, people have used virtual worlds to chat with real life acquaintances and strangers. These online interactions, however, differ from instant messaging in that, now, there's an added level of sensory perception. In a virtual world, one is placed in an explorable 3D environment. Aside from reasons of personal enjoyment, virtual worlds have been used by businesses to hold virtual conferences.

IBM uses virtual worlds to conduct employee training and to encourage community building. Ed Frauenheim discusses this further in his article IBM Learning Programs Get a 'Second Life,' where he writes,

"New IBM employees separated by thousands of miles will be able to mingle, interact and share ideas in the virtual world before their first day on the job,” Ted Hoff, IBM vice president of learning, said in a statement. “They can learn real-life working skills such as signing up for benefits, developing code as part of a global team, and ramping up sales skills before they meet with IBM clients."

Aside from aiding businesses, virtual worlds can also benefit autistic individuals. People with autism, who often struggle with socialization, use virtual worlds (Second Life, specifically) as a way to practice communicating with others. This was highlighted Nicole Saidi's article, iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction. In the article, Simon Bignell, a psychology lecturer at the University of Derby, says

"For people with autism, we've found it's a very nice way of setting up situations they might come across in their everyday lives," Bignell said. "For people who have social, emotional, communicational problems ... we can get them familiar with an environment before they actually try it out in real life."

Despite the great benefits that virtual worlds can provide, there may be a "dark side." At a Congressional hearing about virtual worlds, congressmen wondered whether virtual worlds could be used to launder money, and whether children would be safe in virtual worlds. ( At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide) In regards to the latter, it is definitely possible, as predators lurk in every corner of the web.