This subtopic of virtual reality addiction (people spending
80 hours/week on SL and its ilk) reminds me of Star Trek's
Barclay (Next Gen/Voy) and his halo-addictions. Perhaps
that is the next step of the evolution in technology and
human addictions. We have people who are addicted to
virtual alternate worlds. Once CAVEs ( http://cave.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
) are mainstream and built into the average person's
home (in lueue of the "family media center"), then
we'll begin to see a new form of virtual addiction or
"halo-addiction".
When CAVEs do make the mainstream, perhaps it would be
beneficial to create an Emergency Librarian Hologram, or ELH
program for individuals to have in their home (as well as a
small "essential" library to go with it).
Of course, there would be that transitional period where
libraries would probably lose funding in a number of areas
because it only benefits those who do not own (cannot afford
to own) their own personal CAVE, aka the poor. Those that
own a CAVE would be inclined to not increase taxes/funding
for the library (similar to the private/public school
funding issues I see in some select areas). Oh, but I
believe we would survive.
I just wanted to offer some fantastic view of feature
technologies evolved from social networks and virtual
reality (holodecks that connect via internet - replace ELH
with real librarians doing outreach to individuals while
neither have to leave their work/home).
Whoa! I just had a Congressman David Wu moment....
Mat T. Wilson
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