Virtual World

Internet had offered a very different life for younger generations compared to our parent's life 30 to 40 years ago. Checking e-mail, online messaging, blogging, e-book, downloading movies, songs or application as well as online gaming has been part of the life in most young people today. I can consider myself as a "senior" in this aspect considering I had exposed myself in this virtual world for nearly 10 years.

From an internet rookie that visited various sites, dont know what is google, getting loads and loads of viruses from websites (including p0rn sites, I do admit it since I'm honest) and learning along the way on how to utilize what's being offered in an unknown great blue sea called the internet till now, at least I have the basic knowledge to find what I want in a secured manner and at least manage to utilize it properly to serve the need of my life (no more p0rn though lol).

One of the greater evolution on the internet is to make people socialize and connecting people (sorry to Nokia for borrowing their quote) in the form of online chat program, VOIP (voice over internet protocol, which basically means u can speak online for free) as well as online gaming. One would hailed the internet for making all this possible, but isit for better or worst?

Using online gaming as an example, Starcraft 2 in year 1998 and Diablo 2 in year 2000 by Blizzard was the 2 pioneer game that drive online gaming to a whole new level. This 2 games brought birth to other MMOPRGs such as Ragnarok Online, Lineage 2, World of Warcraft, Guildwar, Sims 2 and more and more games that offered gamers the chance to explore and interact in the virtual world. Initial games like Diablo 2 only introduce a traditional gaming concept, which means the game mechanic is build in such a way where players will tend to concentrate on raising the level of their characters, pvping against one another, hack and slash monster and trying to become the stronger player/guild in a particular server.

Ragnarok Online by Gravity in 2001 however, introduced a very different gaming concept, which basically offered players better chances to socialize with one another with cute emoticons, dresses and accessories as well as the chance to marry online. This concept attracted a different genre of gamers, not those who are interested in traditional hack n slash game but those that like to socialize online. Many critics hailed this new concept, and future games such as Lineage 2 did adopt such concept to a certain extent.

Despite the success of this concept, I, however never think this as a very positive move in terms of psychology development of these young gamers. Past research had shown that online gamers, at least 80% or more were categorized as "seriously addicted" gamers, and these gamers can spent up 10 hours or more just playing the game. Let's not talk about health first since we all know how bad it is when you faced the monitor for more than 10 hours each day while ignoring other stuffs, but the important thing I've yet to mention is some of these gamers dwelved too deep in their "virtual life" while ignoring much of their reality life.

Imagining dedicating alot of time in a virtual world that they consider to be safe, pretending to be another character, befriending strangers that could ulterior motives, and doing online dating and marriage when a youngster had yet to expose themselves enough in reality life. How could this affect their later life? There were reports that showed that some youngsters dwelved too deep into online gaming till they can't differentiate reality and virtual world, which is pretty frightening if you asked me. I did an experiment in an local online game and you won't believed how easily I can get the handphone of few girls in less than 1 hour.

It's not as though I'm condeming online gaming, since I was an online gamer myself few years ago and thus I can speak from my experience based on what I observed and from chats from my online friends. Its just that most youngsters might not be able to discipline themselves enough to separate the differences between virtual and reality world, and some youngsters, especially those who lack of friends or those with lower self-esteem would adopt a totally opposite personality online to make them feel better. The main issue is, how would that help with this youngster's psychological development? Would it help, or would it make matters worst since the problem with the youngster wasn't solved at all. As this particular youngster will feel safer and more secure in virtual world with a totally different character, how will that help them when they are facing the reality world later? Surely it could bring negative effects to them, at least in terms of psychological development right?

As such, it is important to have a balance between play, fun and addicted especially when it comes to online gaming. And as a future psychologist, hopefully there are enough researches done in this area to bring more awareness and to help more and more youngsters that are getting more and more addicted in this genre of gaming.

We do hope we can make a difference.