Filed under: Digital Adoption, Trends by Digado

With the popularity of on-line, virtual worlds such as Second Life there is an increasing chance of triggering an exodus of people, looking to escape reality. This is what Edward Castronova, Associate Professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University, an expert on large-scale on-line games claims in his book entitled Exodus To The Virtual World. It draws parallels to the 1600s when thousands of people left Britain for a new life in North America.

“That certainly changed North America - and that’s usually what we focus on - but it certainly changed the UK as well.”

He continues to predict that everyone will be involved in a virtual environment within ten years - although the level of that involvement will vary. Again a pretty safe prediction, however, the theory of escapism is an interesting one. He sees two different levels of escapism, escape and refugee, which he defines as following:

“The appeal is not for those in a good job, but for those working low-paid, low-skill jobs. Would you rather be a Starbucks worker or a starship captain?” [...] “If reality is a bad thing, and people are going into virtual worlds to reconnect, the word you would deploy is refuge.”

“A father of two spending 90 hours a week in a virtual world because he doesn’t like his wife - I would say that’s escapism, and it isn’t anything you would say is good. But if it’s a heavy-set girl from a small town who gets victimised just because her body isn’t the ‘right’ kind of body, and she goes online to make friends because she can’t get a fair shake in the real world, then I would say the virtual world is more of a refuge.”

In summary, his conclusion is: being, virtual worlds are for those who seek to replace the real world with an imaginary. Whether this is good or bad depends on the situation and motivations of the individual.

Needless to say I think escapism is one of the ‘pull factors’ into the metaverse, but far from as black and white as Castronova suggests in the interview he had with the BBC. To a vast majority Virtual Worlds will be just another place to explore, meet different people and use it as ‘one to many’ media to express themselves. They seek to compliment their real lives rather then replace it. As Castronova states himself:

“There will be a group of people who spend all their lives there (the metaverse), and the question for me is, how big is that group?”

Posted on: December 12, 2007 | Share on: