Immersed in a Virtual World

Immersed in a Virtual World

Journal & Field Log #3

                 Every morning the first thing I do is check my e-mail, perhaps check in on Facebook, and generally orient myself to my virtual life before I go through the task of orienting myself to my physical life.   It’s a sort of dance between virtual and physical.   Pressing e-mail here, sip of coffee there; some piece of news from the world here; some physical detail of my life in Albuquerque here.   In both cases I am immersed in a world:  physical or virtual.

                Judging by the time I spend on the computer, the virtual world seems more real than my physical one.  My partner and I’s discussion seem to trend toward the virtual world (though it may be reflecting a physical world, it is mediated through the virtual world).   The computer, and its ever present eye, seems to dictate what the flow of the day is going to be like.   I keep a calendar online, structure my day around a schedule that is planned to the minute and managed by a set of reminders that pop up (with an accompanying sound) when I log in at work, or open up a web page.   Without this virtual calendar I may not make many of my appointments.  But am I busier than my father (who didn’t have these sophisticated tools at my disposal)?

                Perhaps.   Yet, the computer has sort of interposed itself between the language and the thing it references.  On a practical level, the word itself no longer points exactly to the thing it signifies but points to a series of binary codes, which are then translated to letters, which then light up on a screen.   The process of understanding meaning becomes sort of mediated through the experience of the computer.   Indeed the very act of typing it out on a word processor adds another layer because I can instantly correct the grammar, double check the spelling, even have common words auto-corrected.   This allows me to juggle even more task than my father was capable of, yet with this added efficiency, there is also the risk that the tool itself requires a whole series of steps to keep it running.  How much time is now dedicated to my “checking in?”  How much of my daily tasks are dictated by my keeping track of my virtual life?  

                If anything, Baudrillard uses too strong of a term, by saying that the proliferation of terms has “imploded” the distinction between real and simulated.   For one, if my own reading of Saussure’s theories are correct, our understanding of the world, since it is done through words, is already “simulated.”   We are not really seeing the “real” world, if there is even such a thing.   And while the “simulated” world may indeed have the same draw and require as much maintenance it merely adds another layer of interface between “reality” and us.   More complicated and mediated for sure, but not really sure if I agree with the term “imploded,” which suggests a sort of chaotic mess that can’t be understood.  It can be understood, to the degree that anything can be understood, but is just much harder.