Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds play a role in today's society. Both in our business lives and personal as well. In the article IBM's Virtual World for its Employees: IBM Learning Programs Get a 'Second Life' by Ed Frauenheim which tells how IBM employees under go training to learn how to do their job correctly through the virtual world of Second Life. Also in the article iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction by Nicole Saidi tells us about kids with autism and how the world of Second Life helps them learn how to interact with people in the real world. The benefits of a virtual world is that you can try again and don't have to worry about messing up like in the real world like in both articles the employees and of IBM and the kids with autism get a second chance to learn and fix the mistakes that they did in the virtual world like Second Life. There is a darkside to this though, which is that it is time consuming. I have a feeling that this technology is going to be used in every business that requires training and help people with a mental illness like autism in the future, despite that it would take up time.