Hooked in a virtual world

Over 48 hours with no power or internet will make you go crazy.  What’s happening in the world and more importantly what has happened in my virtual world and how am I doing in it? The question seems silly to me, but that is exactly what ahs occurred in the last week for people I know. Right now I am in the midst of a ‘flood crisis’ and ‘severe weather system’. Cyclone Oswald has wrought massive damage across my beautiful state of Queensland, and in South East Queensland over 300,000 thousand people lost electricity during the height of the event (with some still waiting for restoration of services). 

During this time the peoples have been disconnected from their virtual worlds and have been forced to survive in the real world, an unimaginable and almost impossible idea to them. So hooked have they become to their online persona and virtual world that to break from it is almost akin to death itself.

I for one am not that into virtual reality. I do not have an avatar, but if I did it would be a pretty boring almost lifelike reflection of me. For some their Avatar, or online identity, is a vivid creation of their ideal person for others it is a fantasy reflection.  Whatever the avatar is, there seems to be a blurring of reality and virtual reality and for some it’s a real struggle to disconnect.

My first introduction to ‘avatars’ was you guessed it – James Cameron’s  2009 science fiction bock office success Avatar. The movie is set in Panadora where a paraplegic marine Jake Sully assimilates himself into the indigenous peoples. Paramount to survival is the use of giant blue avatars. Jake and his fellow comrades all  enter the landscape of Pandora through connecting via technology systems to their own unique avatar (which is customised to each individual and made to look like the indigenous peoples).

The movie I believe has mimicked the realities of today’s world in respect to how psychologically people have become hooked and dependent in the virtual world.

Following Avatars release, worldwide a phenomenon began to occur – people were reporting depression and suicidal thoughts. Online forums were attracting thousands of posts to threads such as “Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible”, reports the Telegraph and Daily Mail.

“When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed grey. It was like my whole life, everything I’ve done and worked for, lost its meaning … It just seems so meaningless. I still don’t really see any reason to keep doing things at all. I live in a dying world.” 

(Hill, Ivar, 2010 - quoted in the Telegraph)

The virtual world is appealing for many. Social games such as The Sims and Second Life enable players to create their own unique online identity, which is represented in the virtual world with their avatar through which they are able to live a virtual life.  So emerged in their online persona , some have trouble connecting with others in the real world. In their virtual world they communicate, talk, work, undertake quests and can even have relationships or sex. They have everything they need. Their world is ideal and free from the reality of real life. 

Business's are not missing the opportunity to cash in on the virtual realiity world. Organisations such as Weblin  allows users to transport their virtual persona/avatar to to other platforms or as Venture Beat reports 'weblin lets you teleport your avatar from Second Life to the web'. Within Second Life, Weblin has a photo-booth where gamers can take their avatars for a photo shoot that then enables them to teleport their avatar out of the game to be used web wide.

You Only Live Twice, a documentary by Four Corners describes virtual worlds as ‘places on the internet where you can travel to , make new friends and even make money.”  Entrepreneur reports that big-name businesses are setting up virtual areas for their products (such as a hotel for Starwood hotels and clothing stores such as American Apparel. Both Four Corners and Entrepreneur exemplify the success of online business with virtual real-estate develop Anshe Chung who has turned a love for second life into a full time business. 

From my experience in the last week it seems that the virtual world as become the real world for some. To quote a friend of mine during the power outages – “I’m losing money” and he wasn’t talking about real hard cash – he was talking about his virtual money in his virtual world. Maybe it’s just me and maybe I am not living in reality, but I think these people need to get a life.