Virtual Reality Appeal

The Appeal of Virtual Reality Games and How They Could be Affecting You

Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

Advice Seeker: Dear April Masini,

My two daughters love to play the Sims, a game where they create people, families, towns, and then control how their lives go. It seems interesting to them, yet so incredibly boring to me. Will these games keep them from learning how to form normal relationships to the world?

Sincerely,

Virtual Vicky

April Masini's advice:

Dear Virtual Vicky,

Your girls will grow up normal as long as you still instill in them that basic relationship forming foundation. There are lots of reasons that people like to play games and step out of their reality. Some people step out of reality in a normal way. Some step out in a clinical way that is not normal. Some step out temporarily and have no problem getting back into real life, others, like the main character in the movie, The Science of Sleep, a Michael Gondry film, have trouble differentiating between reality and non-reality and getting back into reality.

This game playing starts very early when children have imaginary friends, or even play dress up, doctor or cowboys and Indians. They step outside of their reality to have some fun -- because their real life is pretty sedate.

People who undergo trauma -- physical, sexual, emotional -- will take this idea of stepping out of reality to the extreme and create splinter personalities, as in multiple personality disorder, to deal with the trauma that they cannot deal with in their "real" life. This is different from schizophrenia which is biological in origin.

Children learn that play time often means having a different world. This inter-personal and intra-personal dynamic does not disappear. In fact, many adults love to play games -- sometimes they create drama in their real lives, and sometimes they play games like board games or virtual world games that allow them to step outside of their everyday life and play.

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April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.