Does virtual life stand opposed to real life?

[NoJo]

I was born in the 1950's, raised on books (well, comics actually), and had to pluck up courage to talk to people face to face in order to make friends and generally learn how to deal with social life.

My kids are raised on TV, but have both moved over to the web for their entertainment. Although they both live within cycling distance from their freinds, they do most of their socializing online.

What are they missing? What am I missing?

 

[Guest]

thats a good question joe. i wonder if they are 'missing' anything or morphing a new culture.
not quite the same here but very close. i would like to think on the positive side of this. where it would have been impossible to meet someone a world away, now the kids have a chance to learn about something they may never had before.
still...maybe this will spurn them on in a physical setting as well. only time will tell on this one.
edited to add:

i wonder if our parents felt the same way about the telephone

 

[Lauren Hynde]

What am I missing?

That in the end, no matter what, sex shall occur, and the human race shall prevail once more.

 

[rgraham666]

If I didn't have a virtual life, I'd have no life at all.

Real life is expensive and virtual is cheap. It's a lot easier, for me at least, to find people I'm comfortable with on line.

 

[impressive]

That in the end, no matter what, sex shall occur, and the human race shall prevail once more.

Mmmm ... sex in the end ...





As for Joe's question, the Internet has made an ENORMOUS difference in my life that I cannot discount. In 1995, I was struggling at home with a two-year-old with significant medical issues and a newborn. There's no way I could've gotten out to socialize (and enjoyed it) ... even assuming I could've found others locally who were dealing with similar circumstances. Yet I needed interaction -- really, really needed it. I was "virtually" isolated until the "virtual" world opened up to me. It may have saved my life.

These days, I find it much easier to connect with people who share my interests, my philosophies, and my perversions (*snicker*) via the 'Net. It's an introvert's dream.

I have no objection to the trend. Sure, I'd like for my kids to have more of the neighborhood atmosphere that I had growing up -- but I wouldn't trade now for then.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Mmmm ... sex in the end ...

You're a sick pervert!

 

[impressive]

You're a sick pervert!

See what I mean? I've obviously come to the right place!

 

[Lauren Hynde]

See what I mean? I've obviously come to the right place!

 

[poppy1963]

As I grow older and the small bit of physical space that makes up my "real world" becomes more surreal (and it does every day), I find myself relying more and more on the virtual life as I seek the essence more of spirit and ideas. I find this world richer and more exotic than any mundanity I run into on a truly personal level in the physical realm. Yet my experiences here enrich that realm and my ways in it. I just dwell here more and there less and I believe I am the better for it these days.

My time of darkness comes...the season of a sinking mood though in ways it is also a favorite season. So many paradoxes.

In some ways the boundaries of my life grow smaller and in other ways are sprung wide and far. I'm just glad to have the cyberworld. That's all I know for certain.

 

[hollyocks]

i've grown up with the internet and all the modern day conveniences.... i can chat with anyone i want around the world in seconds.... i've been dragged up on a diet of tv and electronic games.... i'm too lazy to go round a mates house so i call her on the mobile or chat with her on msn.... listening to mum and dad chatting about the old days and old friends. worse still listening to dad's brother uncle reg, who drawls on for hours about the good old days.... i realise i've missed so much of real life

 

[SeaCat]

Ahhhh but I think I must live in the best of both worlds.

I grew up with very little TV, and talking to my friends on the phone when I could hop my bike and ride over there was frowned upon.

And yet, in the evenings as my parents watched their TV shows, (as I did upon occasion when there was something good on like Costoues Programs or Mutual of Omaha,) I would putter on the then new fangled device called a Computer. If it was a night my father wasn't on call for work I was allowed to take over the phone, dial the number he gave me and get into the then forming DARPA NET.

By the time I was 18 I was programing and chatting on the slowly growing Internet.

Now I have my friends, both here and around the world. I talk with all of them with great regularity, some on the Internet and some face to face. In the Real World I lead an active life between Softball and diving and everything else I do. Yet this life is enriched by the friendships I have made online, the knowledge that is passed around and the comradery in a very few boards like this one.

I live in the best of both worlds.

Cat

 

[Liar]

On line life, off line life... is there a difference? Not really, just interfaces for connecting people. Nobody seems to have the same iffys about telephones and good old letters as they have about the Internet. Just another interface.

Reading books and watching TV, that's truly virtual life.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

On line life, off line life... is there a difference? Not really, just interfaces for connecting people. Nobody seems to have the same iffys about telephones and good old letters as they have about the Internet. Just another interface.

Reading books and watching TV, that's truly virtual life.

Indeed, at least internet connecting is connecting as opposed to passively sitting there and letting the alpha waves hum as we're sold cola mottos, etc. My boyfriend and I had our first date (4000 plus miles away from one another) virtually skydiving together after meeting in a virtual nightclub. Now we live together and share a (rl) bed. Ain't life sweet?

 

[rydia57]

I'm shy sometimes, I kinda like to use virtual life as a bridge to real life. one helps me to exist in the other better. Virtual hurrahs!

 

[Seattle Zack]

World of Warcraft is one phenomenon many people point to, but there's also Second Life, a virtual world where fringe Presidential candidate Mark Warner recently held a virtual press conference.

Then there's Project Entropia, another virtual world where people spend real money to participate in a virtual economy. One guy recently dropped a hundred grand or some damn thing to buy a space station that he plans to lease to virtual tenants.

What the hell? I've never played WoW or EverCrack, although I know many people who have. I mean, I like to play games, and I like to screw around online, but it seems like such an escape. Maybe this is the beginning of the Brave New World, where we can all recreate ourselves in our own perfect virtual image and interact electronically without all the clumsiness of actual molecules.

 

[arienette]

World of Warcraft is one phenomenon many people point to, but there's also Second Life, a virtual world where fringe Presidential candidate Mark Warner recently held a virtual press conference.

Then there's Project Entropia, another virtual world where people spend real money to participate in a virtual economy. One guy recently dropped a hundred grand or some damn thing to buy a space station that he plans to lease to virtual tenants.

What the hell? I've never played WoW or EverCrack, although I know many people who have. I mean, I like to play games, and I like to screw around online, but it seems like such an escape. Maybe this is the beginning of the Brave New World, where we can all recreate ourselves in our own perfect virtual image and interact electronically without all the clumsiness of actual molecules.

Ari Second Life.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

In my experience, if you really want to get anything done, you've pretty much got to go outside.

The internet is basically a refuge.

 

[NoJo]

My questions were: what am I missing? What are they missing? They're not very clearly posed questions, I admit.

Its obvious that, like the phone, online communication is enormously useful, and affords great opportunities to find and meet kindred souls.

But for me, "real life" always stands as just that, my real life, while online time stands in opposition to it. This is clearly not true of younger people; they just don't seem to have an issue with the existential status of online social life -- it's simply a convenient way of talking to people.

So people of my generation tend to feel more uncomfortable and schizoid communicating online. This is not due to lack of experience, or technical issues. It's simply that I spent my childhood and young adulthood without it. My social communication skills were honed in face to face communication.

 

[Liar]

Ari Second Life.

Where the hell does Ari get time for Second Life?

And can she borrow me some?

 

[Liar]

Its obvious that, like the phone, online communication is enormously useful, and affords great opportunities to find and meet kindred souls.

But for me, "real life" always stands as just that, my real life, while online time stands in opposition to it. This is clearly not true of younger people; they just don't seem to have an issue with the existential status of online social life -- it's simply a convenient way of talking to people.

Yep. I guess people had an issue with the existential status of phones when they first became a household item too.

To me, all online technology does is combining telephony and letter correspondence in a new and more convenient package.

"But," some might say, "you don't just keep in touch online, you make new contacts." True. But when I was a kid, and just learned to write in English, there were these penpal agencies, where you were set up with a total stranger kid somewhere far off who matched your interrrest criteria and wrote letters to each other. Made a handful of friends that way. Same thing, much more inefficient media.

 

[NoJo]

...but there's also Second Life, a virtual world where fringe Presidential candidate Mark Warner recently held a virtual press conference...

It was the phenomenon of Second Life that was in the back of my mind when I posted. I'm really uncomfortable with it, and at the same time I've little doubt that its existential status will soon converge with that of real life.