Real vs. virtual: Computer simulation Second life

Abstract

While the term 'real' world implies reality as a set of data objectively given beyond any individual evaluation, the term 'virtual' is seen as a projection of human presence in a computer-generated space. The aim of this analysis is to consider virtual communication as a new form of communication practice through the analysis of the communication of the players in the computer simulation of the Second Life. This video game offers online simulations with computer representations of people who communicate through multimedia, organize their other life just the same as they do in everyday life, associate into new virtual communities and inspired by real characters create identities within alternative avatars. Thus, the virtual world acquires a meaning that has a certain historical and cultural weight in real life. The real life complements the virtual, and the virtual, crossing the boundaries of its space, connects itself with the real world. Second Life shows how the virtual world grows into a media spectacle, which results in images, representations, fictions becoming reality in computer simulation. Thus, the conclusion can be drawn that virtual communication moves the boundaries of the social and technical, the private and the public, the virtual and the real. Frequently the boundaries of these worlds in the relationship between the real and the virtual are being blurred, which leads to noise in communication and alienation of people. When unfulfilled wishes from the real world seem to come true in the 'second life', the player's departure to the virtual world becomes a daily preoccupation, and the virtual replaces the real.