Virtual Reality Questions (Group 9)

My initial understanding of virtual realities is a place online where people create avatars and act out another life. I picture online Sims, or Second Life, or World of Warcraft type games. People use these games to escape their own reality and live in a virtual reality where they can achieve anything and be anything they wish.

Questions
1.) Do you think it's possible that people can be so consumed with their virtual reality that they eventually start to believe that is their actual reality? With all the advancements in gaming, I predict this situation could happen all the time.. Which could be very dangerous and unstable

2.) I think the philosophical question of "what is reality" is a very necessary one. What do you believe? Do you agree with Plato's ideal form, with Buadrillard's "hyperreality" with Kant's phenomena idea? Do you think there even exists a reality beyond what we physically can interact with?

3.) If we are interacting with a virtual world, are we ever truly engaged or interacting when we are interacting with an illusion, a virtual facade of something real?

Virtual Communities Questions (Group 5)

Questions for our interview with Mr. Howard Rheingold:

1. How have virtual communities changed since you wrote your book in 1993? you

tell us we must arm ourselves with knowledge and that what happens next with the

internet is completely up to us...

2. You stated that face-to-face interactions are just as important as online

ones. Do you think that in our culture today we are getting to the point where

online interactions are taking the place to face-to-face? What do you think this

means for society?

3. You broached the question "instead of falling under the spell of a sales

pitch, or rejecting new technologies as instruments of illusion, we need to look

closely at new technologies and ask how they could help build stronger, more

humane communities — and how they might be obstacles to that goal.” Do you think

technologies have been able to do so in these past years?

4. A main point we got from your book is that virtual communities are only

virtual in location, but the effect they have on people is very real. would you

say this is still true today? could you make the claim that virtual communities

have in fact become real...?

5. You talked about the idea of web anonymity and the concept of being anyone

that you want to on the web. This is a growing concern nowadays with pedophiles,

liars as well as privacy protection.. do you have any tips on how people can

interact on virtual communities without compromising too much of their own

information? how can we be prepared to protect ourselves from people who are not

who they pretend to be?

6. You touched upon a lot of advantages and disadvantages of the virtual

communities in your book. What would you say are one of the most important

advantages and disadvantages of virtual communities nowadays?

7. What do you think is one of the best or most successful virtual communities

out there today? And why?

8. Do you think virtual communities today are affecting people in more of a

positive way or a negative way?

9. How the heck did you know 20 years ago that this all was going to happen? you

correctly predicted a lot of Internet issues, like service-for-privacy and the

rise of social networks

10. What do you think about facebook giving its users information to companies

for marketing purposes? How do you feel about that? Are you on Facebook yourself

or not?

11. 20 years ago you asked about the future of the internet.. Will it continue

to be largely free and defined by its users, or will government and big business

take control? can you answer this now?

Simulation and Gaming Questions (Group 13)

Timeline: The Future of Videogames

1.) What will become of society when/if the line between reality and augmented reality become blurred?

2.) How much of this article can we actually believe? I understand the points that are made and that there are facts to support their guesses for the future, but that's all they are: guesses. I remember when 2000 was the year we were "supposed" to have flying cars... So how much can we rely on these predictions?

3.) How will the way humans socialize with one another change? With the blending of reality and video games becoming the norm, will the human race still value social interactions as much?


Does Game Violence Make Teams Aggressive?

1.) Why is there so much focus on computer games instead of other platforms such as the internet, music or television in which kids are exposed to the same amount of violence?

2.) From my limited video game knowledge, I know there are other types of video games that are still "violent" (such as World of Warcraft) while the article focuses on more extreme games like Call of Duty... Can researchers really make the distinction or could it just be that ALL video games create this similar arousal in the brain?

3.) Just because certain areas in the brain are more active or aroused than others at times, does that necessarily mean that the gamer will have violent tendencies? Are these arousals merely temporary?