Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual World is an online environment where people can create an identity for themselves. Virtual World can be known as the "digital worlds" where one create a second identity. In such world, users can alter, build, develop and customized what they want, in most cases, something/someone they are not and can not be in the real world. It is a socialized community online, the main purpose of its creation is for gaming. In such virtual world, one can act like a normal human beings, buying houses, cars, meeting friends and de-friending someone and etc. These fictional worlds can either follow certain storyline or fictional theme or can be set freely depending on the wishes of the users. One of such gaming virtual world is http://www.secondlife.com/.
Besides gaming, virtual world can also be a great way for people to build a online socialized community where they can be used for commercial and workforce purposes. As mentioned in the article, IBM's Virtual World for its Employees, it has the largest presences in Second life where all sorts of meetings and activities can be find there on a regular basis. Of course, users also have to be responsible of what happened in second life as it might affect the actual life. For example, IBM information about a new product shared on second life might leak out and affect the actual companies' profits. Thus, IBM moved to Open Sim where they will have more flexibility and work on projects there.    
Besides gaming and workforce/commercial uses, Virtual World can be created for educational purposes. One of the greatest example is the 3D recreations that can be found in school especially computer programming, in libraries, in museum and gallery spaces. Virtual World can be helpful to share information visually. These educational worlds use in academic institutions such as school and library or nonprofit organizations such as museum, can help one understand the contents better.
Virtual worlds can also be build for politicians especially for debate and discussion forum. In At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide: Forget C-SPAN: Congress Goes Interactive, the potential of second life can be use widely as one can form a virtual world of self-governing environment and can express our thoughts freely as one has the impression that it's not in the "real" world so that opinions can be express more honestly. By using the virtual worlds, politicians can have a sense of their supporters and others' thoughts.
As the above article mentioned, most users use virtual world for gaming, others for workforce, educational, politic, or even military uses for training purposes, but these second life virtual worlds is somewhat similar to the real life as we created a "imaginary" life that we wish we have or something out of the extraordinary.

By talking about the pros of virtual world, it can drawn people with similar interests together despite their location. It is an enjoyable communication tool that seems effective and productive. Virtual world can also provide a great opportunity for people to connect with other people despite education levels or classes as they can create another identity online. Virtual world have a tremendous level of freedom to express what we really want. When virtual world is use for educational purposes such as 3D formation, it can become an advantage in teaching. The cons of the virtual world are that no matter what, it is still a fantasy world. It can become dangerous if the one in the "virtual world" can not separate themselves out from it. The dangers of deception are inevitable and can become self-destructive if one is too into the "second life" world. One can become danger if they become inseparable from what's real and what's real not. Since people can have total freedom in the virtual world, one's mind tend to relax more and might be able to come up with ideas and thoughts that they thought they can't accomplish in the real life. Virtual world is definitely impacting science education. Virtual world focus on the concept of if you can imagine it, then one can build it. As technology advanced in graphics and software tools, virtual world users can use them to their advantage and use the second life as a platform to present these information more visually. Since there are no specific rules in the virtual world, it is just a platform used for education, training, gaming, entertainment, socializing, ecommerce and etc. With so many interactive users on the virtual world, there's no doubt that it will foster creativity from different people with different creations contribute to the web. Thus, I believe that the usage of virtual world is will play an increasingly important role in our public and private life as we move toward to the future.