Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

When people get struggle with their real world, they need to get some rest for next day. Some of them take a vacation, go to place where they relax. And some of them escape to Virtual Worlds. The biggest advantage Virtual Worlds have is that it gives you an opportunity to become someone else who is ideal person of your dream. While they are in Virtual World, they become their ideal persons, by clicking icons, and typing what they want to say. The biggest disadvantage of Virtual Worlds could be that when people addicted too much to Virtual World, they are unable to figure out who they are in the real world any more.

In my country Japan, Virtual Worlds get closer and closer to the real world. For example, there is a NINTENDO DS game called "love pulse". In this game, players pick a girl who they wants go on a date. They have to make some approaches in order to have dinner, go to see movie, and so. After a player and the girl in the Virtual World become a couple, the player is entitle to enjoy spending time together with his "girl friend". There are already similar video games existed in Japan. The reason why "love pulse" became so famous is that even users are out of game, the virtual world continues. Which means even you are doing something else, the clock in the virtual world keeps ticking. Players celebrate the birthday of those girls from the virtual world, spend holidays together, and so. This sounds super crazy to me, but players turns on their DS regarding to what girls from the virtual world doing at certain point of a day. Those users will be unable to make a distinguish between real and virtual world.

Now, video games have such a high quality visual, therefore, it has a huge effect of education. Toys comes with a code which links to online version where toys look like really alive (Hindo). When I was a kid, I used to play outside a lot, fight with friends sometimes, and play with video games only a couple hours a day. In that way, kids can learn how to socialize with others, communicate with others, and what others react by certain attitude. Spend too much time with virtual world could have a huge affect on kids' personalities.

Source
Toy with a Second Life. Brian Hindo
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_53/b4065091329372.htm

Social Networking

Ever since Social Networking sites became popular, not only personal use, but also some corporation started to adopt with this new way of communication. These technologies definitely can be useful for advertising and marketing. Advertising through Social Networking sites is sometimes more influential because consumer's behavior has changed after those technologies got launched. People used to get most of information from TV, newspaper, or radio; however, more and more people spend time with their computers today. That's probably the most efficient way for them to get information. By throwing one question on a Social Networking site and get numbers of answer, market research can be done by less amount of time consuming. Advertising can be done with a lot less money than it used to be.

One of the biggest issues regarding to Social Networking sites is a personal attack. In my country Japan, some of schools have their own Social Networking sites created by students. On those sites, users can say anything about their schools, teachers, and friends. However, an identity of users are undefined, so if one user pick up someone from a class, post bad things about him, and them a lot of people follow, it can be a cause of a problem of bullying. Some students have committed suicide because of that. It may sound ridiculous to kill themselves because someone talks behind on web site, but also it is understandable that students at that age, their communities are everything about their lives. The most difficult point of solving this issue is because teachers and parents are unable to find out who says what. I hope the law of management gets more strict and parents and teachers take this issue more seriously, then this problem gets solved in near future.

Unlike facebook, most users of twitter are middle aged. One of the reasons why only a small amount of teenagers adopt with twitter is because they tend to have their society which they don't let outsiders to come in. On facebook, users are able to choose who can view their page, who can be their friends. On the other hand, twitter is used to connect with various people from a different society. Also twitter has a use of broadcasting celebrities. What they say on twitter explore immediately to their followers, then it sometimes becomes a big news. Although it is believed that young generation leads the way to popularizing things, twitter achieved a huge success by attracting adults. In the future, more and more Social Networking sites that target adults will increase its popularity. 

Source: Who's Driving Twitter's popularity? Not teens. Miller, C. (2009 Aug, 25)
New York Times.

Check Out Social Networking Sites

One of the most used Social Networking Sites among the world is Facebook.
It can be easily installed in to our cell phones which makes us frequently update what we are doing and what is in our mind. My space is more like introducing who you are and your community. Users explore what kind of music, movie they like and then, recommend to others. Friendster, as name shows, users meant to look for friends all over the world.

What they have in common is that they are all influential and powerful to today's hi-tech society. It could be used for business to sell coupons, introduce new products, new promotion, and so on. Instead of having a face-to-face conversation, users talk on the web sites. Some of users are addicted to those web sites and anxious about how many people give them a comment.

I am one of users of facebook, but I don't post comment that often. The biggest reason why I try not to post comment so often is because once I post something, I start checking the site more frequent than usual. Then start thinking who leaves comment for me. Even if someone close to me did not leave a comment, which has nothing to do with our relationship; however, I can't help wondering why they did not say anything. It is necessary for people in today's society to contribute Social Networking Sites in order for them to along with certain community.