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