Jim Blascovich, Jeremy Baile

People interact with virtual representations in just about every facet of life — business transactions, learning, dating, entertainment, even sexual relationships. Online dating, which used to be somewhat stigmatizing, is now normative. Young adults consider their Facebook friends just as important as the people who live close enough to meet physically. In the world of online games and virtual worlds, millions of players spend over twenty hours each week “wearing” avatars, digital representations of themselves. Strikingly, the average age of these players is not fifteen but twenty-six. Household “console” video arenas, especially games, in which people control and occupy avatars, consume more hours per day for kids than movies and print media combined. To borrow a term from the new vernacular, virtual experiences are spreading virally.
Technological developments powering virtual worlds are accelerating, ensuring that virtual experiences will become more immer- sive by providing sensory information that makes people feel they are “inside” virtual worlds.