The way virtual worlds can be used is endless. You can literally do possibly anything and everything with them. For example, you can use them for business meetings incase that people can not meet physically. In the CNN article, "Going to The Virtual Office in Second Life," it is mentioned how more than 1400 companies use Second Life, a virtual world created by Linden Lab. Second life is a virtual world that allows these companies to conduct training and meetings without having to physically meet. It helps save costs as it cuts back on lease agreements for buildings.
The pros are that it helps with connecting people, so communication becomes easier. Virtual worlds can lead to people from different ends of the continent in interacting with each other. Another pro is that it can help with people becoming whoever they want to be, so it can help someone who is shy in real life become someone else online.
Cons of this are that it limits human interaction, and leads to people not being truthful. As previously mentioned, someone can act as someone else in a virtual world which is deceptive. At the same time, it is not easily accessible to everyone, because someone who does not have internet access cannot access a virtual world.
Virtual worlds can foster creativity in the sense that it allows people to do the extraordinary. For example, the WSJ article, "Avatar II: The Hospital," it is mentioned how virtual worlds are used to train nurses on making quicker decisions. This is creative because it actually puts a nurse into a stress test without risking patients lives.
I think the future of virtual worlds will be used more often than now. I think they will become more integrated in schools, as architects in training can use them to design buildings, and because medical schools can use them to conduct virtual surgeries and learn more about the human body. So essentially, virtual worlds can lead to great help in the real life.
No comments:
Post a Comment