There are several things I found extremely interesting about these readings. Mainly, I would like to touch on the idea of a dual existence. The presence that one can have in the physical world can be very different in an online existence. Or one can lose themselves within an online world where they feel almost held back by the limitations of their current place. Auge in the Varnelis reading says,”That our sense of place, as old as humanity, is coming to an end.” I disagree. I believe that this marks a time where our definition of the word place is extending far beyond our own selves in our current location, but now extends globally and online. This new existence online can begin to usurp how we interact with those around us. Moreover, I believe that becoming engrossed in a constant connected network has driven people to blur the line between the real and virtual world. This can be seen in the reading when Varnelis describes the account of a woman that passed away, but her online friends held a memorial for her in their online fantasy game. The virtual memorial was attacked by an enemy team and essentially ruined. This was infuriating to a lot of people and brought into question morality and ethics. But what I find extremely interesting is the completely blurred boundary between how people would react in real life to how it was perceived online. The people holding the memorial were deeply hurt, but more interestingly was the fact that a memorial for someone that died in the real physical world was being help in a virtual fantasy world. The two worlds merged and became one. The virtual world also begins to blur questions of economics. “Digital” products are being sold and traded for real currency without the creation of any sort of tangible goods. This has a direct effect on people’s economic well being in the real world.
The virtual data driven network is becoming more and more a part of our perception of the physical world. Facebook and Twitter are mediums for us to portray our physical activities in an almost choreographed way. People put in many cases more importance in their online image than their real life. They want to show the world that they are having a good time rather than actually enjoy the time they are having. The increased use of RFID tags to embed data in everyday objects begins to add a virtual layer of data to objects that we interact with everyday. This has the potential for people to communicate with objects and for objects to tell us their stories. Recent inventions such as the Google driverless car also serve to allow a constant connected network to have direct control of a human life by physically transporting people from place to place without the persons direct intervention. We now live in a world where the online virtual experience and the physical experience are becoming one.