How our virtual existence is taking away from life as we’ve always known it...
(NTUSU Tribune ~ Themed ~ March'10)
A virtual existence allows us to be whoever we want to be. It allows us to do things not easily done in the physical realm; we can own a zoo, cafe or farm, be a kung fu master or an American idol. Everything you can conceive of you can be, at least in that world. Furthermore, you can control what others see the virtual you as. It’s easy to see why we are enchanted by virtual reality; it seemingly gives us everything we want, or does it?
The fact remains that what exists in the virtual world is confined to it. You could be a billionaire in a virtual world and struggle to make ends meet in the “real” world. The hard realities of the physical world as we know it are the constant we have to come back to. As students those realities are often submission deadlines and exams. We spend hours on end on Facebook, playing games, chatting- basically living as our virtual selves. All that time and energy takes away from what we could devote to academics and ECAs. Rationally we know that we have to strike a balance between our virtual selves and our physical selves. Then why can the large majority of us not strike that balance?
The struggle to balance the disparate worlds we exist in is possibly costing us more than we realise. All that time hunched over computers, skipping meals because we’re too involved in a game, or worse staying up nights communing with computers. The obvious consequence is on one’s health- we’re all university students and again we know all of this. But it doesn’t stop at that.
The way I see it, there is a larger and potentially more troubling issue. The virtual world allows us to be who we want to be. However, in the physical world, we’re rarely who we want to be. In fact, it’d be a boring world if everybody was who they wanted to be; they’d have nothing to look forward to or work towards. So given this distinction between our virtual and “real” selves, how do we figure out where our virtual selves end and our “real” selves begin? My virtual self could be in seventh heaven winning hand upon hand of poker while my real self could be in the depths of despair after messing up a bunch of midterms. What I’m getting at is that virtual reality has the potential to blur the line between worlds to the extent that one could lose touch with hardcore reality.
Our virtual existence continues long after our physical selves have turned to dust. People can write on your Facebook wall whenever they think of you, send you a virtual hug or kiss even when you’re not there anymore. It is immortality in a sense- something we’ve chased for millennia and stumbled upon without really realising. Yet, it’s taking us away from the physical world and changing who we are at the very foundations. Is this change good or bad? I don’t know!
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