Reality and the  virtual world.

Last evening , at the launch of Dr. Harinder Kohli’s new book  ” The World in 2050” , at the Asia Society meeting,  I heard a mind blowing statement by Dr. Raghuram Rajan: economic projections 30 years ago have been proven wrong simply because no one ‘predicted’  a Virtual World. The emergence of this unimagined technology has changed the way the world does business, it has changed our reality. It has impacted societies and even created a new social order – of haves and have nots – those who have Social Media accounts and those who do not. 

This technological frontier has opened up a new Pandora’s box of paranoia and fears perception replacing the threat of  ‘real’ immigrants who can take up your jobs with ‘virtual’ robots . This got me thinking about a world that does not exist yet still exists in parallel. For instance, I have “friends” on FB and blogging networks with whom I share my deepest thoughts though they aren’t really known to me. I enjoy these interactions and feel a sense of loss as I do in the real world, when I don’t. I buy most of my groceries on line and last month actually resorted to home cooked meals delivered through an online service. 

I hardly visit libraries any more and haven’t opened an encyclopedia since Google became so easily accessible. A  lot of my learning these days is via the virtual world and most of my memories are stored in a Cloud. The Banks want me to use the ATM for cash withdrawls and taxis are willing to be paid with the swipe of a card.

Hardly anyone prints photos any more and it won’t be long before people whip out electronic albums like they do Kindles and Kobos. Streaming movies and music has changed the way we entertain ourselves and  applications like Practo keep our health in check.

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I’m linking this post to #Friday Reflections following the thoughts that flowed from the 2nd prompt….

Cheers  and Happy weekend all!