Learning Perspectives from Virtual Worlds

LEARNING PERSPECTIVES FROM VIRTUAL WORLDS
Misty Filippelli
Advanced Communication in Society
Professor Pengilly
January 25, 2010

According to one website, information technology specifically virtual communities provided opportunities to communication. People that share common interest regardless of nationalities learn to connect with each other. This in turn affects attitude and behavior due to broadening of a person’s world view. Recently, the famous singer John Mayer tweeted in his tweeter account that he was withdrawing from the online world for one week in order to gain new perspective. Virtual realities taught users new perspective in a subconscious manner.

Active World was a system that allows interaction between users in a 3-D computer-generated virtual environment accessible via the internet. It consisted of more than 500 interlinked separate virtual worlds that participated between 100 and 300 users at any time of day. This system allows voice-communication, 3-D images via the internet, and purely text-based - "MUDs" - where users could describe their appearance and the spaces they "move" in, in words. The voice and text MUD provided different terms of interaction between participants. But the Active World has collection of the gestures of users’ avatar - the capability to smile, frown, wave, jump and the like gestures. The 3-D images could be replaced by conversations by means of text (Allwood, 2010).

In the blogsite http://thevirtualworlds.blogspot.com/, the blog author exposed one controversy in the virtual world that concerns behavior and attitudes changes - cybersex. There were preponderance of virtual games and communities where persons could satisfy their sexual desires without exposing themselves to sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy. One virtual community - Red Light District the author said tended to be “a physically safe way for young adults to experiment with their sexual thought and emotions”. The benefits also were people with long term sexual diseases even AIDS could experience sexual satisfaction by just participating in this sex simulation games. The author said that real-life partners who are geographically separated may experience sexual intimacy through this simulation games. However, the simulation game affected emotions and could cause marital stress. There were known cases of Internet adultery that became grounds of divorce. There were therapists who reported that the said communities could also create sex addicts, a form of both Internet addiction and sexual addiction. Moreover, the anonymity of Internet communication may provide encouragement to seek out underage cybersex partners such as in the most notorious cases of Barbara Renee Case, 36-year-old American woman who flew to Australia and sexually abused a young boy she had met while playing Runescape.

Therefore, the virtual communities have benefits for adults, but there are cases when it became unhealthy and brought hazards to non-adult users. The relative anonymity of virtual users and gamers made it possible to ploy and seduce young users to adult sites or other sites that promoted certain ideologies. Similarly, a single you tube video prepared by the terrorists to brainwash young Muslims in the United States could have subliminal effects to young American Muslim viewers.

In certain cases, virtual games have been devised to recruit American youth to the US Marines. There was gaming software that was made available for free to young users where they could create their own simulation of a US soldier. Like in the movie “Avatar”, real life persons could create their “avatar” where they express their own attitudes and behaviors. This could always have emotional or psychological effects on the users since their own “avatar” interacts with other known persons that were possible to be coming from different cultures. The Al Qaeda Terrorists were believed to use also the virtual reality in recruiting young and educated American Muslims to their movement. They used the new technology to propagate their ideologies that have subliminal effects to non-adult viewers. The US Homeland Security and the FBI attested that videos were rampant in the internet world that brainwashes American Muslim children to believe in the terrorist cause.

Sasso, a member of the Leading Virtually has not seen Betsy since eight months ago when they created their online virtual group. Their first live meeting was convened and their face to face meeting happened. He said the meeting had given him a new perspective, strengthened bonds among team members, created a similar experience to build comfort among virtual team members and reinforced the importance of one’s work-related roles and their implications on “real” people and other team members. By the way he expressed his acknowledgement, we could see that Sasso has developed a certain attachment to people whom he just meted and worked with online. The same could happen when one person entered a virtual simulation game and interact with the other users of other culture. They could become emotionally attached with unknown avatars. However, the issue of anonymity which we had expressed my doubts with in the beginning of this paper often posed the peril that it could bring to virtual gamers. There was really no assured safety when we enter an open space virtual reality where anyone could just enter, participate and play.

“As hard as it is for me to explain, the real life meeting gave our team an advantage in that we became closer as people, which will make it easier to work together in the future” (Sasso, 2010). “At the end of the meeting, I gave Betsy a hug as she left something I had hesitated to do when I first arrived at the meeting because I was unsure if it was appropriate. After the meeting, I felt more comfortable with her and this simple form of social communication - a hug - became a symbol of that new found comfort within our team” (Sasso, 2010). Virtual actors could feel attached and devoted to people with whom they interacted online.


References


Allwood, Jens & Ralph Schroeder. “Intercultural Communication in a Virtual Environment.” Available 21 January 2010 at http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr4/allwood.htm

“Intercultural Communication via the Internet: Receiving the Message and Sending a Response.”
Available 21 January 2010 at http://www.educoas.org/Portal/en/tema/tinteres/temaint29r.aspx?culture=en&navid=36#1

Sasso, Angelo. “The Advantages of Face to Face Meetings for Virtual Teams.” 2008 June 23. Teamwork, Collaboration. Available 21 January 2010 at http://www.leadingvirtually.com/?p=59

“Sex In Virtual Worlds, pt 2: Advantages and disadvantages.” Available 21 January 2010 at
“http://thevirtualworlds.blogspot.com/2009/03/sex-in-virtual-worlds-pt-2-advantages.html.”