Regular columnist and BT Futorologist Lesley Gavin takes a look at the potential development of virtual worlds.
Ever since the computer arrived in the home, there has always been a vague perception among the adults of the house that if the children are using it, then they must be playing games. Even today, when it is commonplace to complete some homework with a keyboard rather than pen, there is still a sense that this is what the kids only do when the adults are watching.
As is so often the case, adults can fail to appreciate the underlying skills children can pick up when immersing themselves in their chosen hobbies. Many of those teens writing games in BASIC on their ZX Spectrums in the 1980s are the successful IT contractors or games designers of today, for example.
The same principle applies to the virtual worlds of the past decade, and to a lesser extent, even the social networks, de rigueur among today’s youth. The early adopters of virtual worlds are now in their twenties and applying the skills they learnt in the real world.
There are, it seems to me, two fundamental skill sets needed to successfully navigate the virtual landscape.
Firstly, you need to develop an understanding of identity - how people represent themselves and what they need in order to create this persona, or avatar as it is generally called online. This quest to meet the needs of yourself and of others to form identity - to earn points, build virtual homes, rise skill levels, generate wealth - is extremely entrepreneurial and requires individuals to be highly self-dependant - skills that are hard to learn in a traditional school environment.
Second, and core to the online world, is the skill of communication. Admittedly, it is not the same as that learnt in school or at work, but there is an entire language to online communication. And in virtual worlds much of it is based on explicit non verbal techniques. For instance, to show excitement you need to click a specific key or type a series of symbols.
To communicate in these worlds is not always using the richness of spoken language as we still do day to day, and will never supplant entirely, but it nevertheless requires a learning process that builds skills and an understanding of how to relate to others. They may be games, but meeting, arguing, making up, leading, yes even flirting, are ones we all have to play.
The act of communicating virtually is only the starting point of course. Online globalisation is already a reality as people transcend earthly boundaries and cultural barriers. For most of last century, only those few children with overseas family or a pen pal would have had even intermittent contact with those in other nations. Now it is the norm. While there are many things in the online world that make us blanch and still carry unknown consequences for the future of our society, the ability for anyone to make friends with far distant and different strangers could bring enormous benefits.
Ponder, for example, the positive impact it may have in future on the business sphere. Cross cultural communication is often the most difficult part of any business deal, yet it may be second nature to those with a ‘qualification’ in Second Life.
There is always a balance - Second Life and others are not worlds for the unwashed youth to exist in permanently, anymore than we would want a child exercising or eating vegetables for 12 hours every day.
It is important, however, that simply because we as adults may not understand something in the electronic and virtual world - a near certainty as we get older - that we assume it is therefore unimportant or without value. Some of the ‘games’ that our children will learn in virtual worlds may in fact be the same ones they will need to play and master through their ‘real’ lives.