Benefits of an Alternative Lifestyle

No, it's got nothing to do with sexual preferences. But as with most alternative lifestyles, this one is also often frowned upon by certain more conservative segments of society. 

I'm talking about the online world. I remember the metaphor they used when I was a kid to describe the internet- the neighbourhood. Each website was a house with its own address, the URL. 

How have things progressed since then! Now, it won't be far fetched to describe the internet as a universe, with parallel universes attached.  Almost everyone has left his or her footprints in this virtual world, whether you like it or not.

But for some, they've taken it one step further and are spending the majority of their time and investing most of their energy in the virtual world rather than in the real world.  That is, of course, if you think the virtual world isn't real.

Which has nowadays become a contentious issue in itself.  More and more nowadays earn a substantial living off the net. And I'm not talking about ebay; I'm talking about sites like Second Life where you can actually trade real currency like US dollars for the game currency. Think foreign exchange but this time the country is the World Wide Web.
 
It's not just money, apparently you can learn a thing or two about real life from the virtual world too.  In World of Warcraft or WOW for short, a technical glitch leading to an online plague within the game is being used as a case study examining the impact of how disease spreads in real life. On a more macro level on the internet, I'm sure parallels can be drawn from virus and firewalls with disease and immunisations.

 In terms of character development and communication skills, many are quick to dismiss the internet and online communication as corroding the ability to interact one on one. And while I'm not dismissing the merits of this argument, I think we need to open up to the possibility that even in this area, we too can draw lessons from the parallel universe online.

 I don't play many online games but one of my friends who does tells me that by leading online quests and embarking on team missions he's learnt to be a better leader. Sounds ludicrous? Maybe not, if you think about it. Virtual reality means that we can make mistakes without having to pay much for them. This encourages people to take more risks. But as with real life, the more mistakes we make, the more we can grow from them.

My hunch is that virtual communication might even bring out the socially impaired from his shell. I know a quiet and painfully shy someone who's a totally different creature behind the screen. By playing WoW, he's interacted with people from all over the world; his online persona gives him a confidence that he can't find outside his flat.

By investing his time online, he has become more open and has even met up with his gaming peers in real life. A Newsweek article a few weeks back says that people are marrying their gaming mates. Isn't that proof that online interaction can aid, complement or even enhance our communication in real life?

The internet can bring us so many benefits when it comes to human interaction. Yet cynics are so quick to judge and condemn netizens for spending copious amounts of time online that I sometimes feel the tirades are too harsh and parochial. Saddest of all, for most of the time, they make little effort to understand the object of their acrimony.