Thursday, April 23, 2009

Counter Argument to Avatars aren't "real" blog

Though I agree with many of the things said in the blog about avatars not being real, there are many aspects in which I disagree. I, myself don't participate in the whole second-life and having an avatar character, however I do believe strongly that people become addicted to such advance internet technology and interactive games. As we have discussed earlier in this year there have been numerous amounts of incidents where people have either been arrested for child neglect or committed murder off of internet technology, such as games. Hence, serious gaming. With this said I feel there is a strong correlation between one's emotions and the situations that one's avatar is put in. Because people are living these "fantasies" of a surreal life that they wish actually played out in their real lives they become connected. In a sense it can be thought of as a self-identity disorder. They become so consumed in the life of their avatars that they forget how to detach themselves from the virtual self. It is for this reason that I'm not surprised about the case where the woman felt emotional distress because her "text" character was raped numerous of times by others in the chat-room. To some this becomes a reflection on them and raises questions about what may be wrong with them for others to dislike or have so much hatred toward them to do such things? Words can do so much to a person, think of the young girl who was on myspace and told to kill herself by several of her "friends" and later on that evening her mother found her dead as a result of suicide. I would just like to know how you all feel about second-life and avatars. Do you think there are ways to detach yourself from the virtual? Is it even possible to become so consumed with the virtual that it reflects in reality?

Also, to end this semester I was just curious how others felt about this course and would you recommend it for others? I personally REALLY enjoyed this class and the professor. I didn't think coming into this class that it would engage me as much as it did. Coming to an end I'm glad I chose to take this class as my philosophy. It's truly a philosophy class like no other! I definitely would recommend it for any undergraduate to take before graduating.

8 comments:

  1. I think that people are clearly able to separate themselves from the virtual world, but that it is easier to become wrapped up in it than many realize. Think about your Facebook account. It is not so much an avatar as it is a stats sheet-- much like a sports player's or celebrity's bio. It is an accurate online representation of yourself that you use to manipulate a network environment (by sending messages, putting up photos, etc). If someone were to manipulate your facebook page to vandalize photos of yourself, or to continually post offensive things on your page, it would be quite disturbing (if not necessarily traumatic). This is kind of analogous to the woman's text avatar being raped. Just as people on second life might make their avatar look like themselves, so do others update and constantly double-check the accuracy of what they have on facebook. Like I said, these aren't completely the same, but probably operate on the same concepts and tendencies.

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  2. I suppose it makes sense that people attach themselves to their avatars since an avatar is supposed to be a representation of either oneself or their desires (what I refer to is people who take on a different image, persona, or even gender). It is the way in which the gamer puts his or herself into the virtual realm in order to interact with it. Therefore, anything that may happen to the representation of yourself would likely affect you in some way or another-- it just depends on the degree to which you react to the situation. That degree probably depends a lot on how much to identify with the character and as you said, how seriously you take the game (that could depends on how long you've been playing the game with a particular character).

    Yeah, I'm glad I took this course as well! It delved into many interesting aspects of computers and society and the class discussion was always stimulating, so I suppose I have to thank the people in class for that as well. If there're other exchange students from my major coming here in the future, I'd definitely recommend this class!

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  3. I do think there are ways to detach from the virtual but I think that a network of friends and/or family is an important element. In many cases, people turn to the internet for escape. In some cases, just for a fun entertainment sort of escape but in others the escape is more in the literal sense, a running away, be it from home, family, or the real world as a whole. I think when the latter is the case is where the most potential for problems lies. If you're turning to second life to get away from what's happening in your real life, the temptation to stay there, to let that become real, seems a pretty easy one to fall into. I think disengagement is indeed possible, but without the real world connections and friends/family to be involved with, the disengagement may be less likely to occur. So yes, I do think the virtual can affect reality, but I also think that certain pre-existing conditions make that more likely to occur.

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  4. Oh, and I forgot to include that yes, I'd definitely recommend this course. I thought I'd enjoy it going in because I love computer and technology related stuff, but it turned out far more fun than I thought it would be!

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  5. I agree with your statement CT. I don't personally participate in the second life thing either but I do think that people become too engulfed in them. It is obviously a problem. I saw an episode on my favorite television show Law & Order about the dangers of Second Life and after that, I was too scared to try it. I think that when people find themselves lost in the false realities, it damages their social interactions with other people. It actually alienates them from what is truly reality and can ultimately lead them on a destructive path. this can also alter a person's relationship with the people that they care about the most.

    I LOVED this class! This class was not what I expected it to be. I would DEFINITELY recommend this to all of my friends.

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  6. Yeah, I agree with this post and many concerns have raised from second-life issues. I think the best way to detach yourself from the virtual life would be maintain your life as much functional and normal as possible. In other worlds, even if people nowadays spend lots of time online, maybe involve in their second-life games, we need to maintain a certain portion of time spending "off-line". The time that we spend in our daily physical life would help us better understand the true meaning in our modern high-tech life: technologies are created to help people living a better life, not to "replace" everything in your life.
    As for this class, I do enjoy it as much as everybody else does. The course has raised numerous questions to help me reconsider ethical issues in the modern society, and the possible concerns in the future that we might encounter with someday. This has been a really cool and unique learning experience to me. I love it.

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  7. I agree that many have a strong connection between their emotions and their avatars to the point that reality can be skewed. I think it all is a matter of self-control. The individual has a choice as to how involved they get based on whether they spend all day on second-life or chose to limit it to a couple hours. If a time limit is set as to how long they will take part in second-life then hopefully it will not invade their time in the real-world. However, if such limits are not placed then I definitely can see how people can become completely consumed by the game to the point that the line becomes blurred between action in the real world and action on second-life.

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  8. I agree with the comment on facebook--they're not avatars, but I know tons of people who become obsessed with what's going on on the fb. Even now, people update their statuses so often, it's like having an avatar. so I can only imagine how consuming having an avatar could potentially be.

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