Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are three-dimensional environments in which you can interact with others and create objects as part of that interaction.Virtual worlds can be used in many different ways, and not just for gaming purposes. They can be used for educational purposes or in the workplace. There are many positives regarding the use of virtual worlds; such as enhancing people's social lives by allowing socializing in a virtual world to grow and building relationships with people all over the world. For educational purposes, virtual worlds can be used in academic institutions for virtual libraries, museums, or computer programming. 

According to an online article on www.cnn.com, "Going to the virtual office in Second Life", By Mark Tutton "As travel budgets are squeezed and slashed in the recession, companies are increasingly seeking innovative ways of bringing employees together for conferences and meetings remotely." The use of virtual worlds is saving companies money. Also from the article, "According to Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, more than 1,400 organizations -- including large companies, educational institutions, government agencies and even the U.S. military -- use Second Life to hold meetings, conduct training and prototype new technologies more efficiently."

According to an article on www.washingtonpost.com, "At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide", A Linden Labs worker put on her nicest black suit and her most formal pair of wings this morning, to help run a congressional subcommittee hearing about online virtual worlds that was broadcast simultaneously in the company's own virtual world, Second Life." The employees are welcoming the idea of conferences being held through virtual worlds, and it allows the everyone to complete their tasks. 

However, the disadvantage of virtual worlds, more so in the workplace can also be training because the downside of that is someone may be well at completing tasks in the virtual world but fail at completing that same task in the actual real world. 
Also, the idea of escaping the real world  is common among those that use virtual environments and people often live in the virtual world instead of dealing with the real one. 
Lastly, just like with any computer or functioning program there are always potential hardware malfunctions that can also impact the use of virtual worlds and cause technological malfunctions.

Virtual worlds foster creativity because it allows someone to have control of themselves by creating a virtual person. It can build confidence for people too because socializing and interacting in virtually is equivalent to a shield from the real world. My example of this is perhaps someone is too shy to speak to people in their everyday life creates a virtual character and becomes socially fluent and builds relationships by doing so. 
It can create its own personal network for employees and companies and allow bonding amongst those specific employees/companies. 

In the future, I believe the use of virtual worlds will expand, so I believe it will look more common and more realistic. It may be hard to distinguish virtual reality to actual reality and I believe everyone will have some type of access to virtual worlds. Whether that'll be in the home, on the phone, in public, schools, workplace, restaurants, and etc. Virtual worlds will become more common and as mentioned in the online article, "Going to the virtual office in Second Life By Mark Tutton, "Even in this era of remote collaboration, it seems that we still need human interaction -- even if it's completely virtual."