Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds, or Second Life as also called, are used by many companies including  governmental agencies, hospital and even U.S military for several purposes. Indeed, Second life enable to hold virtual meetings and conduct trainings. As a matter of fact, according to the article "Avatar :The Hospital", second life are used to conduct drills in which employees and, in this specific examples,  nurses will train for real life situations. Indeed, they use avatars in order to represent themselves and immerse a virtual world. Moreover, virtual worlds are also used by young people, as a creative game in which imagination is key. Similarly, virtual worlds are also used as a "healing space" as reported during an interview in the article "After second life, can virtual worlds get a reboot?" and can lead to a stress reliever. Virtual worlds are used to make the real world more efficient. 

Virtual worlds are used in many ways and for different purposes. They are more and more used as they provide many benefits for their users. Indeed, as an entertainment, it offers a place where the users are "not alone" anymore and can connect with others. Virtual worlds have their social community and enable the users to use their imagination and creativity.  Furthermore, the virtual worlds have psychological healing benefits, as explained earlier. Another advantage using second life is that it allows immersive experiences. Therefore, businesses use this tool to conduct virtual training for their employees. Moreover it is said that Second life is less costly than a full dress drill which represents another advantages offered by these virtual worlds. However, there are some risks using this technology. Indeed, as reported in the article "Virtual world may impact real-world behaviors", an experience that has been conducted, reveals the connection between the character that the player embodies, the avatar, and its actions or profile "wether if it's a hero or a villain". The experience showed that players who embody the villain, are more willing to act like one in their real life actions, as it is demonstrated when it comes to pour either chocolate or chilli sauce in a player's food.  It is proved that the players who embodied the hero tend to pour more chocolate in other's food whereas, the ones who embodied the villain tend to pour sgnificantly more chilli sauce. Thus, these virtual worlds can impact the subsequent behavior and therefore have consequences on users' real life behaviors.

Virtual worlds users are offered an environment where they can use their imagination to create or build things like it is the case for Minecraft, a digital lego world. Moreover these virtual environments provide the users a freedom to express themselves through their imagination and desire when it comes to create their virtual self, called avatars. Similarly, the users have access to tools that can be used to create, and explore the capacity of a virtual world. Thus, virtual worlds give the ability to their users, to express their creativity. 

Nowadays, there is a significant use of these technology. We can expect in the future, that the virtual worlds will be more and more realistic and fully in 3D. New technology will enable us to feel more sensations and to have a better immersive experience like the VR, which is the newest immersive tool for the users to enter a virtual world and be connected to it.