Last Name 1
Student
English 101
Professor
12/5/2018
I(V)RL (In Virtual Real Life)
Alternate realities seem like fantastical dreams; however, if someone from the last
century were to look forward in time to today then they would have imagine today as just that: an
alternate reality. The world seems to be expanding more and more everyday, and it is all within
the society’s reach of the little rectangular computer in their pocket; their phone. Social Media
was created to connect friends, family, and the world closer together, but has it caused a virtually
obsessed society as well? Although this relatively newly found form of communication has
already shown many advantages to connecting people, cultures, and societies that also has
transcended across languages, race, and traditional barriers; these harmless interactions have
turned into endless hours of hypnotic compulsions to reach for that mobile device and
continuously check for notifications or spend hours upon hours glued to the blinding, small
screen. Why is there such an obsession for social media around the world? What does it do, and
mean for society? The reasons aren’t so generic and many times are case-by-case, or
person-by-person, however, some of these effects from this social media mania have been shown
to be causing major leading concerns in society today.
The addiction towards social media can be attributed to many causes. To begin with, the
human need for intimacy and the fear of being alone are primal emotions, and these emotions are
rooting into the human psychology. Social Media helps one not feel so small and alone in the
Last Name 2
world; it’s one of its many appeals. Social Media is excessively used by people with social
anxiety as it creates a bridge for them to freely use the internet in their real world without their
anxiety causing them to face the same issues as would interactions in face-to-face. There is a
certain comfort social media could provide in that way. There is also the opportunity for
anxiety-filled users to be able to create their own personas that could be completely different
from the one they live with in real life. Sometimes it will be an ideal persona these people create,
and their fixations to live their life through it online on social media; either as an escape from
their everyday life or they would completely wrap their own self-identity and self-worth with
these personas. It could be a combination of the both as well.
For example, there have been many cases about people creating and living their new life
through second-rate virtual reality sites such as Second Life, Sims, or other real-time virtual user
based sites or games. In these cases, sometimes the people will decided to marry a person
they’ve met online and form a virtual family in this way, but it will all be and feel real for them.
Most times these relationships don’t go past the screen in front of them, but sometimes that
craving for human intimacy goes beyond, and then there are real...
