Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual reality has taken huge strides in recent times. Technology has been pushing itself to provide us with a way to escape reality and jump into a virtual world.

Virtual technology can be used in many ways. The first and most obvious would be using it to escape reality and jump into a fantasy world. This could be through a video game. Also as shown in the academic article by Lisa Dawley and Chris Dede "Situated Learning in Virtual Worlds and Immersive Simulations". They say that situated learning can be utilized by immersing students in virtual situations of real world experiences. This can help in any classroom be it an online webinar or a complex digital simulation allowing medical students to operate on a fictional body. You can also be somewhere you're not. In Dave Itzkoff's article, "I've Been in that Club, Just not in Real Life", he describes how he was able to enjoy the music and entertainment of a band through virtual reality when the physical place was too crowded.

Some pros of virtual reality are the obvious ones such as enjoying things from the comfort of your home, same amount of access to experiences wherever you are in the world, and just overall convenience. If a student is sick and unable to make it to class, if he can utilize virtual reality technology, he won't have to leave his bed to sit through the lecture. Cons can be a huge problem if people abuse this. People can use virtual reality for nefarious activities. They may use it for criminal intentions. It can also divert people from human contact. When you can go anywhere in the world through virtual reality, why would you ever leave your house?

Virtual realities can foster creativity by exposing people to things they would never have been through its technology. Also due to the fact that virtual reality is still something that's new in technology people would be motivated to utilize it in new and different ways.

I think that if virtual reality evolves, it can have a very normal application in our lives. As a student I suspect that virtual reality would cause universities and colleges to administer a considerable more amount of online classes.