Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

There are many ways that virtual reality can be used. One way that I think of right away when virtual reality is mentioned is gaming. Ever since I was a kid I have always wanted to be in games so I think virtual reality is the way to fulfill this dream of mine. The definite pro of using virtual reality this way is to create a full immersion environment that allows people to do things that they cannot do in real life. This full immersion ability leads to many different uses of virtual reality. Like for example, in the article "Naughty Auties" battle autism with virtual interaction" they explain how people with autism are able to more easily interact with people through virtual reality. Virtual reality helps people with less social skills be able to interact more easily with others. Not only does it help people lacking social skills it can even help people with hone their skills. In the article "Avatar II: The Hospital" health care facilities are using virtual reality to help practice and hone their skills. This is very good in my opinion because virtual reality can train nurses and doctors to react better during emergencies and perform better on the operating table, saving more lives. Virtual reality also fosters creativity because in a virtual world you can create anything. If you can think of it it can appear in a virtual world, while you can also be very creative in real life, I feel like sometimes common sense limits our ability to be creative. For example, in real life if someone thinks up of a really amazing and creative idea, they might limit themselves by using common sense and say something like that is impossible and completely dismiss their creation. Virtual reality would also help us in the real world when wanting to make stuff because when you think of something impossible in a virtual setting, you can reverse engineer it to see how it was made and apply your findings in real life. The only con that I can find in virtual reality is the inability to differentiate between real life and virtual reality. I feel like for some people who use virtual reality would soon begin mixing up virtual reality with real life and start doing things they shouldn't be doing. Or even start to deny our real life and just completely immerse themselves in the virtual reality because they like what is going on in the virtual world rather than our real world, which is just avoidance and not really facing your problems. 

Citations:

"Avatar II: The Hospital" by Stephanie Simon, The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2010

iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction by Nicole Saidi, CNN, March 28, 2008.