Avatar based social networking sites are very interesting to me. People from all over the world can come together in a virtual space and in a way live out a second life. It is a bit odd when you think about exchanging real world money for objects that are not tangible. You will never really be able to hold in your hands what you are paying for. A collection of arranged pixels on a screen. Its a hard concept in a way to grasp. When I was younger I would play a few avatar based social networking sites along with my brother and sister. We would pay a monthly fee to be members. One game we played that was mentioned in the article was club penguin. Another was Disney's Toon Town. In both Virtual spaces, you dressed your character, owned your own property and home, had friends, and maybe even owned a pet. You could spend hours playing them on the computer while not even noticing how much time was actually passing.
Eventually I grew out of this phase once I really thought about how I was spending my time. I found myself completing all these tasks in my virtual space, getting things done, and advancing myself. Once I got off the computer and entered back into my real life, I no longer felt so accomplished. I realized that I would spend so much of my time and energy advancing in a place that materially, really didn't exist. And once I stepped back into the real world, it was like the past few hours of my life did not exist. No one else knew of my virtual accomplishments, just myself and few strangers behind avatars. I had done nothing to better myself in the world that was truly mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment