Virtual life

 

Lately a colleague of mine mentioned the subject of virtual life and how the pandemic is affecting it.

 

The way I look at things, the origins of virtual life as experienced today came many centuries, even millenia, ago, when the human race started passing messages from one person to another when these were too far away to be seen or heard.  I’m referring to the means of communication, initially through writing or signals, then with the development of telecommunications such as the telex, phone, fax, radio and others.

 

In this way, individuals, communities or groups could communicate and take actions based on these communications, even if physically they did not meet, with the same outcome as if they did.  I’m talking about developments in personal relationships, commerce, the dissemination of information and the like.

 

With development of the computer, the internet, optical fibres, satellites, cellular telephone, this trend just continued growing.  Today, you don’t just call your mate from your home phone, but also see him or her almost anywhere on earth, at a price that always gets closer to zero.

 

Even before COVID struck, you could meet your mates through writing (email, chat rooms) or audio visual means instead of physically going somewhere.  One can also select a representative called an avatar and move it in a completely fictitious social life that only exists on computer.

 

You can meet virtually with family, friends, people with common interests, and discuss or follow comments that are being made, or play games.

 

You can search for a life partner with the multitude of websites and apps that exist for this purpose, some general purpose and others specific for certain characteristics (such as religion, sexual orientation, age, interests etc).

 

You could carry out courses of any type, including university level, without moving your butt from your favourite chair.

 

These are all important facilities, as they facilitate access to useful services for many, many people, provided, that is, you have the money to buy the technology necessary and be in a location having an adequate communication network.

 

This was all in place prior to COVID.  What has happened now is that with the measures taken by governments the world over to limit the virus spread, especially with economy lockdowns, stay-at-home orders as much as possible and other movement restrictions on regional, state and international levels, the facilities that one might have heard about became not only useful but essential.

 

Now that things have started to get a bit easier with the increase of people vaccinated against COVID, one might perhaps expect that the use of virtual tools might reduce back to what they were prior to the pandemic.  I have my doubts whether this will in fact occur.

 

Just take as an example the use of technology by children, especially the younger ones.  For a long time, it was recommended for young children not to have screen time, including television, tablet or smartphone, in excess of an hour every day.1  Now during the school lockdown, my five-year-old kids were pushed to stay in front of the computer to follow their school lessons for about four hours every day, apart from other home work they needed to do.  Now am I suddenly about to convince them that they cannot have more than one hour screen time as it is not good for their health?

 

Many enterprises were requested to let their employees work from home if possible.  This wasn’t a practice that just started now, but suddenly many more employees started making use of this activity.  When this storm is over, don’t you think some organisations will realise they can do without investing in centralised office space costing an arm and a leg, and that many employees like the idea of avoiding spending hours in buses and trains?

 

The main problem with virtual life is the lack of physical and personal contact that you can only get from being close or in front of another person.  In front of a screen, or on the phone, one can act differently from being face-to-face with another.  I’ve often heard of people finding it easier to say negative things about or to a person when using technology rather than being in front of the person.

 

When in front of someone, one can observe better his or her reaction to what is being said or happening, things that could be lost if the camera is not in focus, or part of the face is not visible, or the voice drops out.

 

Virtual life has its limits.  It’s good we take advantage of it, but essential nevertheless to live a full life in the flesh - a physical life.

 

1https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/gug-indig-hb~inactivitiy, retrieved 6/10/2021