Gaming world

I recently watched a documentary, “second skin” on the gaming world and people whose social life is mostly confined to the internet and with characters who represent people they have never really met before.  For the most part, it was very disheartening.  So many people feel more comfortable in a fake world than they do in reality.  Does this mean we should expand the virtual world so more can find happiness and solace?  I think ,as a society, we should be trying to understand the reasons why more and more people can’t find happiness or confidence in the real world today and attempt to solve these problems.

    There are aspects of virtual life that I think are a blessing to some.  Part of the documentary focused on a crippled, mute man.  In the virtual game he plays, he can walk, talk, climb, jump.  He described how when he does these things in the game he feels like he is really doing them.  When other peoples’ characters meet his in the game, they don’t see the wheel-chair, but the young, handsome, athletic man whose confidence he as absorbed. 

         There were other parts of the documentary which I found to be extremely disturbing.  They showed a wedding of a couple who met for the first time as their characters in the virtual game they both played.  Their relationship grew through their characters. It was unnerving enough that instead of bridesmaids walking down the aisle, there was a group dressed as star troopers from Star Wars, but to each his own!  When the bride and groom (both dressed as their characters from the game), met at the end of the aisle to recite their vows, they separated from one another and sat at opposite ends of a table, each seated in front of a computer monitor.   Projected on a large screen, for all the wedding guests to see, was the image fromm their computer screens: the couples’ virtual characters taking wedding vows with virtual voices.  While the virtual lovers, clasped hands and looked into one another’s eyes, the real bride and groom stared at a computer screen at least a meter away from one another.  After the vows, the couples stood up and kissed one another.  I think there is something to be said, when the union of a man and woman for the rest of their lives occurs not together, but separated by computers. Maybe they are really in love and the best of luck to them, but need I say more?