Each college student’s avatar is popping up in the desks around you. Most of them look like actual humans. There are a couple avatars that look alien like. The people who use those avatar types as their identities are usually artsy and can create pretty cool looking creatures. You tried making one of those but you don’t usually wear it out.
Some people display their brands on their avatar clothing. Though, this isn’t common in a classroom setting compared to social media platforms where each person is wearing their brand. This is the case as everyone collectively realizes that the classroom setting is not a place for marketing. It’s like an unspoken rule. Those who do try marketing in settings like a classroom are usually hurting their brands more than helping.
Your hour long class ends and you double check to make sure the notes were saved to your system. You decide to give your brain a break by looking through Facebook.
To look at posts on Facebook you are transported to a small, box shaped, white room. This is your profile. There is a special desk against one of the walls which you can sit at to create a post. There are pictures, posts and your shared content on another wall and your settings on the third wall. The fourth wall has a door which leads you to a hallway.
You exit the room through this door. The hallway is filled with labeled doors. Each door brings you to different group chats, Facebook groups or your feed. For now, all you want is to browse through is your feed, so you open that door and enter. As you enter, the door shrinks and puts itself in your “pocket tools” so you can access it later.
You are put in another white room but it is so big you cannot tell the exact distance between all the walls. You cannot see where the walls meet the floor or ceiling. But you haven’t taken notice of these details in years. The room is full of avatars walking around.
The avatars are the people who you follow on Facebook who are also active for the moment. Those who are active can see you too but none of you are actually interacting. If you wanted, you could talk with groups of people or an individual but once you are doing so you and those involved in the chat become invisible to everyone else.
This is because the speech between you and the other starts to show up in the old school text bubbles between you and the person you are talking to. If you are in a group setting, the speech bubbles show on the left side of your peripheral so you can still view the avatars you are talking to.
For right now you just want to take a walk and view all of the posts hovering above. These hovering posts are high enough so that no one else walking around hinders your view. The posts appear in two rows facing forward going down the never ending room. You take your time and stroll through them. You pause a few times to watch videos that catch your attention. When the video senses that you are watching it the sound will turn on and the video will start again.
After spending 10 minutes walking through Facebook you remember that you were supposed to text your girlfriend after class. You quickly grab the exit door from your pocket tools and hop back into your profile where you switch to the texting portal.
You had changed this portal’s theme months ago from the original pure white to a deep blue that has small white lights resembling stars that move around like fireflies. You figure it’s time to switch up the theme of your texting rooms again, but right now you still need to get back to your girlfriend.
You click the tile on the wall with your girlfriend’s contact which was easy to locate as it was on your most recent conversations wall. This is opposed to the wall that you have to scroll or search for contacts. You speak a quick message that turns into text before your eyes and click send. Relieved you got back to her before it had been too long since your class ended, you decide to pull out your favourite game.
Suddenly everything turns black except for the light coming in through your bedroom door. Your mom has just walked into the room so the VR glasses have switched to AR. She lets you know that your aunt and uncle have made a surprise visit for supper and you have to clean your room before they head up.
You stretch, remove your glasses, click the ON button of your Roombot, fix your hair and head down the stairs.
Tess Houcher
