Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

There are many different ways in which virtual worlds can be used, from enabling users to escape their own reality's and live out their fantasy's, to taking the place of impersonal conference calls for big organizations. The virtual world Second Life is used by IBM for the later, creating a more social and more personal place where people in different parts of the world can conduct business and hold meetings.  There are both positive and negative affects of virtual worlds. On one hand they allow users to bring to life things from the past, as seen in the New York Times article "In Room 100, It's Sid and Nancy All Over Again," back to life which creates enjoyment for people. Another positive is disabled people are able to go into these virtual worlds and live as person who is fully capable. The article on how people are using Second Life in order to bring autistic people together and their families in order to gain a better understanding of the issues that they face also seemed like a great use. The down side I see to this is that although it may provide some the sensation of doing things that they never could before, the reality is that they are still sitting in front of a computer screen, so to me it is creating sort of false senses of happiness. Virtual worlds foster creativity because they allow users to basically design and create the world they want to live in, whatever that may be. I think the future of virtual worlds will look like what ever people can imagine.