Now, I never gave this much thought. I always thought that this world that we physically inhabit is the real world. This computer in front of me, the shoes on my feet, my friend sitting next to me. Those are real. Ipso facto, that is the real world.
But is it really?
When I was a little younger, I used to spend the majority of my time on the computer either playing games or being online. Often my mom would tell me, "Stop being so anti-social," and basically to come back to the "real world".
Just because I was online didn't mean that I was being anti-social. When I was online, I was often chatting with my friends. Those friends were (and still are!) real. Would I categorize them in the virtual world or real world (considering they were not physically present)?
I feel as though the line between the virtual and real worlds is a fuzzy concept. It is neither present nor absent, dividing nor uniting.
Then are they really two seperate worlds?
Or...do we really need to define exactly what the real world is? Wouldn't defining as such imply that there is a world that is unreal?
Granted, online gamers get a lot of flac for devoting so much of their time to a seemingly pointless hobby that does not have any real life application. However, they earn money, recognition and sometimes prestige (in their circle, per chance?) It has even come as far as being a profession.
Some people even make a living out of being just a blogger. No day job. Just blogging. An example of this is the famous Singaporean blogger Xiaxue. She earns money directly from her blog. Companies pay her to do advertorials. She earns thousands of dollars from just one advertorial.
Now that's a job!
So maybe the "real world" is an ancient concept where one had to do things in the physical world.
But the computer is a physical-world embedded object. Doesn't that count?
