Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds can be used for several activities that can enhance its productivity. It can be used to improve gaming experiences,virtual prototypes, training programs for military, medical training (surgical procedures and diagnosing)and psychological therapy. However, it does have its downfalls which include lag time, better tracking systems, undermining the basic laws of physics and, it’s lack of acuity.

Virtual worlds allow users to be very creative by allowing to run practice cases before it occurs in the real world. In “Avatar II: The Hospital” by Stephanie Simon, she explains the usage of virtual worlds in the medical fields. It’s an online simulation designed to help nurses react properly in tensed emergencies. It works well in that it doesn’t interfere with the hospitals regular business and its cheaper to creative a virtual world and complete the training rather than having to pay actors to play the roles.

In “Virtual world may impact real­ world behavior”, it states how our roles in the virtual world may transcend into our regular day to day behavior. In the article, two groups played as either a villain or a hero. After the experiment, they each were given the chance to give either chocolate or chili sauce to the future participants. The ones that played as villains almost always choose to give chili sauce while the ones that played as heroes gave chocolate, almost twice as much, to the future participants. This shows that even though the participants were done with the experiment, their mindset was still similar to the role they played in the virtual world. It could have been done unconsciously but it’s interesting to see how virtual worlds can continue to affect participants even after they have entered back into reality.

The future of virtual worlds seems to be looking bright as technologies continue to improve vastly. I do believe that the online virtual worlds will somehow mesh with reality that will feel more life like. It might begin to feel more tangible in the sense that it allows participants to physically be connected to its experience.