My Term Project

For my research paper, I chose to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Virtual Worlds. In my first paragraph, I give a short summary of what virtual worlds actually is, as well as giving the history behind it, and how it became so popular in our world today. I go on to explain several advantages and disadvantages in the next few paragraphs of my paper. First, I state that virtual worlds allows for a creative outlet for the participant, perhaps like a home away from home. However, the disadvantage to that is the participant can potentially get sucked into a life that isn't real.

In the next paragraph, I continue with the theme,discuss advantage vs. disadvantage, or in my paper,healthy vs unhealthy. I portray that some of the healthy reasons to having a virtual world/creating an avatar, which is that they can be very beneficial to people with disabilities. But I then counter act, and talk about the unhealthy reasons to having a virtual world, psychologically.

Another advantage and disadvantage I discuss is how friendships and relationships can be made through virtual worlds, much like in social networking sites, but like we all know, there are many dangerous factors or chance of danger when it comes to issues like this.

I conclude with an observation of how a balance is needed between the imaginary world and reality, and conclude with how virtual worlds can become your "real life." I also end with a quote by one of the virtual worlds experts.

I discovered alot of information about virtual worlds, and learned alot as well, but the main conclusion I came up with, is that virtual worlds can be very unhealthy if you use it in the wrong way. For instance, to learn from others and communicate with people who share interests is fine, but my findings showed that alot of people use virtual worlds to hide who they really are, and do things that they would never do in reality. It is almost like the virtual world is their real world, and many potentially dangerous factors can come of that.

I used the Internet for some of my research but I also used three books on virtual worlds, which is where the core of my research came from. I chose the topic of virtual worlds because I found that it was most interesting to me, and there are so many ways to go about learning the topic or discussing it. My paper contributes to news media, because it is a new way that people communicate with each other. For example, instead of going to a real actual park and meeting someone and communicating, participants of virtual worlds can go to a virtual park, without leaving their house, and communicate with someone.

I contributed some information to a wiki page on virtual worlds, so if you would like to see it, the link is posted underneath this excerpt.

http://baruchnewmedia.com/wiki/Virtual_Worlds

Privacy in New Media

When it comes to certain aspects of New Media, for example social networking, the user really does not have much privacy. Take facebook, people can see what your doing, what day and time your doing it, who your friends with, who you share stories with (for instance on your facebook wall page), where you go (pictures), who your family and friends are, and if you add a status, what your doing at that exact moment. There really is not much privacy. Granted, you can choose to have privacy or not, by changing your privacy settings, or not accepting someone as a friend, or even by simply not updating your status every 10 minutes. However, once you are friends with a person on facebook, you really can see very far into their private life, and privacy is no longer private.

Our Class Wiki- So Far

Besides the assignments we have had to do on the Class Wiki, I started to edit a Virtual Worlds page. Advantages and disadvantages of virtual worlds is what my research paper topic is, so i have learned quite a bit about this subject. I went to the homepage, and added some information I thought was important in knowing what Virtual Worlds are. I discussed how virtual worlds can help people with disabilities or even self-esteem issues. I also explained about what people might do through their avatar character.

Since this has been the only page I have edited, I plan on editing others that I have some knowledge about. As it comes closer to the finishing of my research paper, I also plan on adding more information on the virtual worlds page that I have already edited. I will probably discuss some of the disadvantages of it, since there are not explained anywhere on the homepage.

The Next New Thing

Many of us love shopping online. It's easy, fun, and always exciting waiting for your merchandise to be delivered to your house. Well, what I would like to see, which I guess you could say is a type of "new media," is something like a virtual closet. You can download a full length picture of yourself, and attach the clothing, shoes, jewelry, etc. to the image of yourself, and see how you would look with it, before you decide to buy it. I know from experience, that there have been times where I ordered clothes, and they didn't fit right, or just didn't look good. This is a chance, to virtually see how the clothes may look on you, and help your decision alot more on what you want to buy. It may sound a little far-fetched, because of course trying something on your actual body is better than trying it on virtually, on a clothing website, but I still think its a fun idea.

Advice to Baruch College

On top of tuition, books is just another thing we have to pay for when going to school, and they can be quite expensive. What I would like to see Baruch have is a e-books link on their website where all class textbooks are available to read. Students can just click a link and have the textbook right on the screen in front of them, instead of having to purchase it at high costs at a bookstore or carry all these heavy books to class (and all over the city) when usually most teachers ask to leave the textbook at home. And since there would be no cost on paper or printing, the e-books can be cheap or possibly even free.

My New Media Class- So far

As the semester has went on, and we have learned more and more about New Media, we are becoming very familiar with it's technologies. Some of these technologies that are part of the new media are flikr and picasa which took over photography and youtube which took over film. There are podcasts replacing radio and blogs replacing journalism. There are also e-books, hypertexts, and wikis replacing books. There are social networking sites that are part of new media such as facebook, myspace, twitter, and badoo.

Internet is essential to new media because it is where all of the above mentioned and more are taking place. In order to read a blog, you need to be on the Internet. To be able to catch up with friends on facebook or myspace, you need to be on the Internet. Everything I mentioned has to do with the computer, and being on the World Wide Web, as well call it.

I already explained how new media is replacing old media, but why is old media being replaced? Old Media is being replaced because technology is changing and being updated every day. We are finding out all new ways to accomplish things with using the computer and Internet, and since they are very important components to our world today, people use them for almost everything. So old media is becoming a thing of the past, hence the word old, and all of the new media technologies are more accessible on that thing we use everyday called the computer.

Cited Readings: Friedman, Linda. “Old Media, New Media.” 2009. Baruch College.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

I think that Virtual Worlds is a great place for the imagination and one's creative outlet. It gives people a chance to use their imagination and do things that one cannot do in "real life." For example, fly. It allows you to open up a world for yourself that you may not have or be able to have in the real world, but through imagination, it can provide similiar satisfaction. For example, In the Youtube video "A second life on second life," the woman describes what it is like to have a disability, and creating an avatar for herself in the virtual world, allows her to do things that she physically cannot like walk, dance, jump, etc. This is another reason how virtual worlds can help people. This woman learned more about her disability and shared stories with other "avatars," with similiar disabilities and different ones as well. Virtual Worlds allow users to explore the environment and interact with other people and information. Like social networking, its a place where people can communicate and share ideas by developing their own simulations and models. These virtual worlds allow players to create individuated characters with unique identities, and sometimes be someone they want to be but are not. By saying that, I'm not trying to imply that being your own person is wrong, because each and every individual should find happiness within themselves and who they are, but with societies pressures, people are constantly trying to be someone there not. A virtual world in a way can help an individuals self-esteem, as crazy as that may sound. By acting through avatars, players take on a role distinct from yet related to their own identity. This allows players to create public characters who think and act as members of a community, rather than just being a private individual like they may be in real life. Also, The avatar can choose to behave in ways that the avatars creator might not.

The only dark side that I can see a virtual world having is similiar to the above, basically having to do with psychology. A person may get great joy from creating an avatar because of the many reasons I mentioned earlier, but in some cases it can lead to a false sense of reality. The person might be come so wrapped up in their " second life" on the computer, that they neglect importants aspects of their real, actual life. They can become so fascinated with their avatars character, that they forget who they are. This is probably a rare case for most people, but it is possible and one of the negative aspects I could see virtual worlds having.

Virtual worlds create a community of people and the participants can learn as much from eachother as from talking to any official source of information. Just like in social networking, it can bring to the surface a world of new ideas and evolve people's commitment to a better community.