Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds are an exciting media medium that can have many real world applications for problems. In the article "'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction", virtual world software Second Life has given people with autism the chance to re-represent themselves. Second Life is a software that acts as a sandbox experience, allowing people to make virtual avatars and interact with an ever changing environment. Communities are being created on these virtual worlds and can attribute to one of virtual's worlds biggest strengths. This strength is immersion, it allows people to experience a new interactive world. Another one of the virtual worlds' pros is unlimited creativity and applications. We are already saw massive virtual worlds such as Second Life, VR Chat  and Minecraft spark massive creative communities. For example, various articles including "Going to the virtual office in Second Life" all hint at Second Life's impact on the real world. The future of virtual worlds can be unlimited, if the technology and hardware can keep up, and spread to the masses more. One of the biggest cons with Virtual Worlds is the cost to run the software. As programs become more and more complicated, the hardware costs to support these virtual worlds have also been increasing. On top of this, a truly amazing virtual world might dissuade people from fully interacting with the real world.