Bonjour à tous, je vous propose un article en Anglais sur la réalité virtuelle et ses effets négatifs écrit par Felix Bateman. J’ai trouvé cette réflexion autour des réseaux sociaux et de ses dérives vraiment très intéressante, profonde et poussée. J’espère que cela vous plaira autant que moi. Bonne lecture!
If you’re reading this then you have fallen victim to what in my mind could be considered to be a false sense of reality. I will never say that the computerised world is negative construction however, what I will try and say is that the computerised world has the potential to create a so called fictitious reality.
Pressingly the screen of which we all sit infront of is becoming ever increasingly demanding, taking up more and more of our precious 24 hours. This can be clearly seen with the invention of new aspects to the toolbars adding endless possibilities at the touch of a button. The launch of the iphone has dramatically increased my awareness of how dependant people can become on their favourite gaming and social sites. I use this word social with a little precaution as I really want to ask the question whether the major social sites such as facebook and myspace alike are really a facility for you to be sociable. Could it be said that a person with 1000 friends is a socialite? Essentially here we must give credit to the fact that they know 1000 people and therefore on one hand can be regarded as a socialite but an important question still hangs over the possibility of the ever so easily add friend button after a ten minute chat in the real world. Ultimately this is drawing closer to the point that based on the day to day occurrences; it is very easy to falsely construct a desired reflection of oneself using the webpage. The increase in desire to privately check newly added friend’s recent adventures, how accurate their actions appear to be, shows to me a complete backwards step in a sociable reality. Naturally the newly added friend is doing their part by construction their own desired façade but surely it would be more sociable to actually go and talk to that person. Somehow I feel that there is a sense of achievement and safety to ones space that they can feel disengaged from the reality of actually talking to another.
It could be said that as demand and the nature of creating a reality in the computer world increases then the disengagement from actually being with the other person decreases! Using the example of web chat in which for a long while now we have had the possibility to see the other person via webcam and chat to them using mikes creating but essentially not mirroring reality thus illustrating disengagement. Essentially we have a certain control over the new communicative reality but surely we are governed by the machine and therefore one could say that we have lost our freedom.
Putting this aside I feel that the powers of the masses makes this newly generated reality possible and to not participate gives a sense of exclusion from the new society leaving that individual behind and ultimately what could be argued in the eyes of the society as a limitation. In short we cant help but conform to societies unwritten rules. Does this mean that in the eyes of society, reality is undergoing a change?
The most pressing point that I will mention now is the obsessive nature of the so called reality sites. Second life for example is a simulation that has enabled people in the real world to make money through setting up businesses in this fictitious reality. What i am wondering is whether this second life sites become so advance and lifelike that it actually becomes hard for an individual to tell the difference between the real world and the computer world. Will the second live get so advanced that the characters actually have the chance to play computer games of which one is called third life. In a harsh reality, could we see computer graphics become so intelligent on our combat and driving games that when driving along or walking upon a high street an individual has the desire to recreate what has been possible on their screen with blindness from the consequences? The difference between the two is that there is the restart button in the computerised world.
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