Living in a Virtual World

I see it everywhere. People are watching television in the doctor's office on their cell phone. They are driving down the road texting on their PDAs or Blackberries.

I watched as two people who were close enough to talk to each other are texting each other instead. What is it that makes us pour all of our attention into a device that strips the communications of all but the sense of sight and perhaps hearing? Is it the pretty colors? There is no sense of warmth. There is no hot or cold, only words that are UPPER or lower case. Emotions are communicated by emoticons. Words are recorded by clicks or taps coded into a bit stream and sent at the speed of light to a cell tower, satellite, or through a DSL cable. The other end displays the communication with beams of photons emitted by the excitations of the electrons on an liquid crystal display.

Perhaps people have been hurt by living in the real world. They are overly sensitive to the harshness of experiencing sound, touch, smell, taste and sight. People would rather buffer themselves behind digitally pixelated plasma screens. The experience of eye to eye contact has been replaced with an invitation to join someone in chat or be added to their friends list on face book or instant messenger.

Even so, it is a sign of the times. Humans adapt and adopt. Even now my son is enrolled in a "virtual academy." The classroom is in front of a computer and participation is in a chat room. Every once in a while he will meet face to face with other students. They will travel great distances for a single event to gather and introduce themselves to each other.

All the while a smattering of super computers collect and log every data bit traveling the virtual world. Who knows who is watching, reading, listening to our cybersation?