In today's society, our lives are all practically online because we put it on their. You walk around on our phones stuck in a virtual world that we seem to prefer over the real world. We like to know what our friends are doing and how they are. The internet allows us to be able able to obtain that information from where ever we are. That is exactly why it keeps us entertained and interested in it all the time. The internet allows us to control what people know and lets us create another us. There are good and bad things about having a virtual self, but that is only a small idea in this bigger concept which is the internet it's self.
Some people that don't feel safe from the real world use the virtual world as a place to escape and be themselves. The internet allows them to connect to other people that like the same stuff and treat them better then people in real life. But this is not the best thing because it makes them anti-social and lets them re-create themselves and makes a fake person of themselves to impress people online. After a while they believe that their virtual self is the real them but in reality it isnt, it is something they made up to escape from the people they should be socializing with. Personally I am a person who spends many hours of my time online because I like meeting new people and I do also make a virtual me. But in my case i do act the same in the real world and the virtual world because I combine both to keep myself.
There are different aspects of the internet like some people think it is making our children of the future grow up on phones, tablets, and computers. That is true but the internet is where the real world is going. There are a lot of jobs that are moved to the internet and allows companies to be formed without the employees to even know each other in real life. An example of that is I know a game studio that is making a game and half of the team hasn't even met in person. They us a program called "Dropbox" to share all of the files and they have the majority of the game done. Usually you would go into the office and sit next to the people you are working with. That is all changing as the internet grows. This changes people mentality of waking up in the morning getting ready and going to work. Then working at home in your pajamas is added to your virtual self which makes life easier but takes away from social interactions.
The internet is the best thing for the 21st century because it allows us to learn so much so easily. The internet lets us create a virtual self which then allows us to do what you want under a alias. What you do under it is what makes the internet wonderful. It allows you to learn many things like playing musical instruments, knit, code, build stuff, make stuff, draw, and etc. For me personally I have learned so much on the internet it still amazes me. I have learned how to code in HTML, some Javascript, and bits of pieces of other things. I have learned how to host servers do to the masses of libraries about it along with many other things. I have been able to build my own computer by ordering all the parts, host my own website and email server from my computer, and then able to make multiple websites that I had coded myself.
I'd say in about 20 years almost all jobs will involve the internet. Many people that make money online from their virtual self live off of it. Personally I make $500 a month but I know people who make $10,000 or more a month by doing what they do online. That is one of the good parts of having a virtual self, being able to make more money than you would usually would in real life. The down side is that it takes away from their real life which is important but it doesn't take away from a social life because they still talk to friends online because it is so easy to come together.
There is another part of our virtual selves which involve video games. Video games allow you to think and also learn while having fun. As Sherry Turkle's "Who Are We?" she mentions a teen named Tim playing SimLife. He says
