Response: Virtual Worlds

My first question this week asked about the potential benefits to interacting in the virtual realm. I took a class last semester called “Computers in Society” in which we discussed similar issues. There are several examples of people who have met on sites like Second Life and World of Warcraft and met and got married in real life. I think that often times the people drawn to these sites are ones who want to escape their every day life. For example, one article I read gave the example of a woman who went on Second Life as a male avatar because it made her feel more powerful than she did in her male-dominated real-life workplace. For these people, the online world provides a social outlet that probably combats loneliness or feelings of frustration that they feel in the real world.

Next, I asked about whether we will begin to expect the real world to meet the same customization that the online realm presents to us. I am going to go with a “no” on this one. I think that most people are able to separate the real world and the virtual world, and people understand that the opportunities available to them online are not necessarily the same as those open to them in their personal life here on planet Earth. For example, a broke, lonely, in-debt college student can parade around as a rich, successful tycoon in a virtual world and experience things that would never be available to them in their every-day life. As long as this person doesn’t have some sort of mental illness, I think they’d understand that there is a difference to the things they can choose or customize in their online world and what they can (or can’t) in their real life.

Finally, I asked about ethics in online realms. I think that people should police each other in virtual worlds. If someone is pretending to be a pedophile on a virtual site, then other members of that site should call him or her on it. People on these sites should make it clear that behaviors that aren’t OK in the real world are also not OK in the virtual world. Anything that makes other users uncomfortable should be policed, since we can’t exactly call the cops every time someone is raping and murdering women on Pleasure Island in Second Life. I don’t know that the users who do these things on virtual world sites are more likely to do these activities in real life, but there is something a little disturbing there that begs for someone to keep an eye on it. The only people who can make sure that other users behave ethically are the people that use the site– therefore its up to them to make sure that behavior in virtual worlds is kept in line.