In the novel Ready Player One, the year is 2045 and there exists an alternate, virtual universe known as the OASIS. People choose to spend their time connected into this world while they maintain their real identities anonymous. It seems to be so much easier to live in the OASIS than in real life; you can be whoever you want to be and you have endless possibilities as to what you can do, from "traveling" around the world to creating and accomplishing things that you could not accomplish in the real world. The OASIS gives people the opportunity to live their lives as they wish, and to reach their true potential... virtually.
In the novel, people, including Wade, seen to prefer to live in a game rather than face the "real world", which seems to be a horrible place in 2045. How realistic is this depiction of the future? In my opinion, not very. I do not think it is very likely that in the future, people will succumb to technology to the point of spending most of their time immersed in it, living a fantasy life. I know that many people today are addicted to video games, online virtual worlds, social media and/or other technology-based ways of communication. However, I do not think humanity will reach a point where the virtual is ultimately preferred over the real. Sure, technology has its many advantages, but it can never truly replace the actual touchable, tangible, emotional, real human interactions.
As I mentioned in my paper for Project 1, there is something personal and intimate about face-to-face interaction that cannot be replaced by other methods of communication. Avatars only mimic human expressions and emotions, the lack of human presence makes communication a fake interaction. Feelings and emotions are what essentially make us human. In the book, Wade knows his best friend Aech through OASIS, and only interacts with him in the virtual world. How real is this friendship? Who lies behind Aech's game controller? Wade has befriended Aech's avatar, but in the end he is just a character created and controlled by a person whose personality might go beyond what his character is actually portraying. A world consisting of fake relationships does not sound like a very happy one, and I think human's need for real interaction will prevent the world from reaching a time like the one in the book, where humans escape into the virtual and avoid reality.
I agree with Maria that virtual reality will not replace real life experiences. While technology may be "always on, always on you", there is a point where users put down the phone and engage in a conversation. Some people may answer a text before beginning a conversation, but the important part is that people still do the conversations. They make their own choices to invest time in face-to-face conversations as opposed to only having conversations over text. For example, while Skype and phone calls have become increasingly popular for interviews, every employer that I have ever interviewed with has preferred or required a face-to-face interview. Social constructs such as this will be very difficult if not impossible to replaced. Conversations in person almost add another dimensions that even Skype video calls cannot replicate.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the question that Maria raises about Wade knowing who Aech really is behind the controller I see as an increasingly important question. With an increase in anonymity that social networks have enable, I can easily see a kick back reaction. Many people want to know if who they are communicating with are who they say they are. If the communications shifted over to solely virtual reality, it would difficult to distinguish between real identities and fake identities unless a system was put in place.
The fact that you say "Wade has befriended Aech's avatar" instead of "Wade has befriended Aech" or even "Wade has befriended Aech online" speaks volumes to what I consider to be the ridiculous nature of this virtual world-based world. People need friendship at any extent, but I personally do not believe that this craving for the company of others can be satisfied by a virtual relationship. Can the pang of loneliness be somewhat alleviated? Yes, I'm sure. But humans really do need other humans physically.
ReplyDeleteWade shows his need for human companionship a little bit through his perception of his relationship with Aech. He does not question that Aech is similar to how he appears online, probably because Wade cannot bear the thought of being deceived by someone whom he considers to be his "best friend." When speaking of Art3mis, his virtual crush, he also betrays a sense of delusion, for he says that he doesn't question that she is female for the plain fact of not wanting his crush to be a middle-aged man who is fooling them all (Cline 33). Yet in both these examples lies the greatest problem with virtual friends: trust. Physical companionship means a knowledge of, at least to an extent, a person's true self. But, if we do not even know a gender or age of a so-called "best friend," how can we really be experiencing the level of companionship that we need?
I would not go as far as to say that virtual relationships will never supplant real life relationships. 7 years ago, my friends and I used to get together at 4pm every single day of the week to play cricket. Today, our daily dose of sports has been replaced with online social networking and world of warcraft. The point I am trying to make is that we are already living in the virtual world. The deftness with which online social networking has crept into our world has led us to wrongly believe that we are far from the world Wade lives in and that everything is ‘hunky dory’. In the words of the singer Jon Foreman “Oh, its closer than you think”.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you, Maria. Games as we know them have grown to be very addictive. If we manage to achieve such a perfection with them as OASIS, then they are going to grow even more addictive and i believe people are going to start investing much more time in their games. besides, OASIS, as described in the book, is as real as it can get. when you use the OASIS visor and the hepatic glove, your whole being is completely immersed in the virtual world. I do not think we need to experience things physically for them to be real. Further more, look at how things are; where the world is headed to. Everything is getting worse and worse. People have become more desperate than ever before and they are longing to escape reality and OASIS seems to be the answer. So i would not be surprised to see millions of people spending the better half of their day in this virtual world.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Maria saying that we are humans essentially from our feelings and emotions. There really can't be a personal relationship with a human and an avatar. Wade likes Aech in Oasis because he feels like thats a way for him to be himself in a virtual world where he is free. I feel like people, like Wade, have become way to attatched and this is very similar to last weeks blog about being able to differientiate between what is real and what is not.Very soon he will not be able to tell the difference between the "real world" or the virtual world of Oasis. I feel like no human can connect with an avatar or robot on an intimate and personal level so a world with humans making simple surface area connections would be our future.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this friendship is very strange. I can understand online friendships to a point, but I have trouble understanding when these are very close friendships. Sure, Wade and Aech spend a lot of time together, but when you get right down to it, how much does Wade really know about Aech? He doesn't even know his first name. I think there's a lot to be said about a friendship in which the friends allow themselves to be vulnerable to each other. Sure, Aech might not have the best life and might not want to let Wade know about it, but if he did i think that would make them even closer friends.
ReplyDeleteI believe that a balance between technology and human interaction is necessary. We have to admit that technology provides that "escape" or "Exit" we once in a while need from reality, currently we leave in a world that unfortunately has a lot of troubles and sometimes we just need a break of it. Of course, that there needs to be a limit, but as long technology is been used with moderation it is acceptable to use it as a distraction, the problem begins when you start feeling more safe and comfortable in a virtual world, since it does not solve the problems it just helps you to avoid them, but problems will still be there.
ReplyDeleteI hope that we never reach the point at which people prefer the virtual over the real. However I think we might be heading in this direction. We are already at a point where a lot of interaction takes place online. Whether it is Facebook, text or virtual worlds such as second life, we often hide behind screens. In Alone Together,Turkle presented us with many examples of people addicted to technology who essentially live in a virtual world.
ReplyDeleteWhile virtual reality will never have many of the aspect of reality that we cherish, I fear that people will find it easier to live a fake life online.
Don't be too hard on Wade. He lives a lousy real life. Can you imagine living any differently, if you were in "The Stacks" and got the chance to go to school in OASIS?
ReplyDeleteHis Internet is not yours. It was mine for a while--I didn't "live" there but it was more exciting in the early days, when you used a "handle" and Facebook's boring insistence that you use a real name did not exist. The Old Internet was a frontier. Today's Net feels like a safe and boring suburb. And I hate that about it but I also hate suburbia, a cartoon of rural living made possible by cheap oil and lax zoning.
I'd even go so far as to contend that UR is a virtual environment, as polished and hyperreal as any theme park. We are safer and better tended than our peers at [insert name of Big State U here] but sometimes it feels like a simulation of college, not the real thing.
That's another example of Baudrillard's hyperreal at work. And in Ready Player One those in OASIS know it's a simulation. That makes them different from those not yet "awakened" as Neo had been by Morpheus.
Before you give me the Brick for that generalization about cartoons and suburbia, I have an entire book for my Eng. 216 class, "The Geography of Nowhere" by James Howard Kunstler. Jim writes in detail about how suburbia was deliberately invented and did not grow organically as cities have done. It made the scales fall from my eyes, putting into eloquent words a festering hatred for that living arrangement I've felt since childhood.
ReplyDeleteBut then I don't shop at most chains and almost never patronize chain restaurants. They seem more false that what we encounter online :)
I completely understand the mindset that virtual reality will never completely wipe out face to face interaction. However, I still find it to be a realistic portrayal of how our future may turn out. Perhaps not via the OASIS, but via smartphones or Google glasses, I think that reality will continue to be overtaken by technology until the two become synonymous. Being raised in a certain era predisposes us to certain thoughts about where the future may turn. I am sure that people even 20 years ago did not think that technology would end up where it is today. The arrival of the internet is certainly a game-changer and as we are just in its infancy I don't really think it's safe to make any predictions about the future.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the world will get to such a terrible point in our life time (though 50 years is a while), but I wouldn't say "never". The human population is depleting resources quickly, and as more and more get used up the more chaotic our world becomes. Poverty levels will rise again and the world would be a much dimmer version than the world we know now. In a situation like that I wouldn't be surprised of the common use of a virtual reality, the world wouldn't be worth seeing.
ReplyDeleteThough the world could be so depleted that this type of technology wouldn't have a power source and then a virtual world wouldn't be very applicable. At that point I don't know what human kind will turn to.
Beaumont, did you feel that way before taking the FYS with Dr. Pelletier? I wonder about our fascination with apocalypse and decline. I'd contend that the US is declining, economically, and has been since the start of the 70s. But even a slide into "just another nation" is not exactly "The Stacks."
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