Real Life Fading Into Virtual World

Posted on 2008-08-24
Quite recently an introvert colleague of mine was asked whether she ever felt lonely because of her lack of friends. My colleague surprised all of us when she said she had more than 50 friends with whom she frequently communicated. We probed our colleague for more details as we seldom saw her with friends and had a good laugh when she revealed that her friends where virtual and she communicated with them everyday when online at work and at home. Her revelation made me reflect on my own circle of friends and I was shocked to discover that 98 per cent of my friends and acquaintances are people I either seldom see or have never seen in real life. And I am not alone.
The NET has brought in community tools to become a social platform to get people to meet virtually, communicate online and make friends. Two years ago I chanced upon the Facebook entries of my cousins and was surprised to see the activities that they were involved in. Neither was their parents aware of these and would have certainly have disapproved if they knew. I was surprised that they were prepared to reveal personal information with complete trust to strangers around the world whom they had never seen and would probably never see or know. And yet right at home their close family were kept in the dark.
Ever since I have been in Singapore the only way I keep abreast of friends and colleagues whom I have not met for decades is through social community tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook and through their personal blogs. I know so much of their personal lives and activities without even having the need to communicate with them.
The virtual world has a powerful impact on people. At my previous workplace; two of my ex-colleagues found their life partners over the NET. One of them had an IRL (In real life) boyfriend; but becoming friends with a stranger through the community tool Facebook she realised that her IRL boyfriend began to get jealous and reveal a different side of himself. On the other hand the virtual friend had made her realise that her relationship with the IRL boyfriend would never amount to real love and the rest was history. You certainly do not have much of a chance fighting with a nickname somewhere out on the Net.
Many people have started to use the virtual world to play out their dreams, imaginations and fantasy that are not possible in real life and many younger generation youth profile themselves in the virtual world accordingly.
Not all virtual interactions have successful endings. There have been cases where two people have chemistry within the virtual world but are totally disillusioned when they meet each other IRL for the first time.
In my office I work extensively with over ten virtual teams in multiple projects and have conversations with them that elevate to business outcomes. Each team has around 5 – 20 members and the key element that keeps us connected is a common goal of getting work done. I have not met anyone in my virtual teams and have no desire to do, as I neither have the time nor inclination to communicate with them outside of work. Some of my acquaintances in a similar line of work confide that long hours in the office and even longer time on the keyboard at home closes the doors to IRL relationships and opens doors to multiple virtual relationships that evolved to become more personal. Such trends are on the rise as virtual professional teams are mushrooming due to globalisation and outsourcing deals.
The commercial aspect of virtual relationships has been noticed by IT vendors and they have started not just virtual relationships but virtual life where you can live a second life in space based on your imagination and desires. One such world is Second Life at http://secondlife.com. Second Life® is a 3-D virtual world created by its Residents (virtual users). Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of residents from around the globe. Here you can become someone you would like to be seen as, teem with people, have fund and experiences and even buy a virtual land, house and start a business. You can trade your intellectual property with other residents in virtual currency called the Linden dollar that can be converted to real US dollars.
Today there are many community tools such as Facebook (www.facebook.com), orkut (www.orkut.com), Friendster (http://www.friendster.com), hi5 (ww.hi5.com) and Linkedin (www.linkedin.com) which offer you a chance to profile yourself, connect with others and post your daily activities, chat with known and unknown people and even play online games. In addition there are countless personal blog tools available for users to ramble about themselves. Second Life provides users a channel for experiences where you become a person you always wanted to be and interact with people whose behaviour and reactions you can create. In future when you ask a person how many friends he has do not be surprised to hear that he has 100’s; none of whom he has met or may even exist IRL.