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Online Collaboration And Socialization

Abstract
The impact of technology on most aspects of Western society can scarcely be overstated. Computers, software, and mobile devices become ever more prevalent, altering business and personal behavior, and demanding new thoughts on socialization, security, and privacy. A world ever more connected of necessity requires guiding insights by technology experts, scholars, and scientists. This paper explores the diversity in form of online collaboration, from massively multiplayer online games to web-based communication and sharing applications. It also attempts to express diminutive, albeit lucid windows into the future of electronic work and play.
Online Collaboration and Socialization: An Expanding Influence in a Shrinking World
Somewhere in China, a cadre of workers begins their 12-hour work day, overseen by exacting bosses who make certain that the laborers meet their quotas. Toiling seven days a week, many of the workers make less than a quarter an hour (Barboza, 2005). Like many Chinese industries, their employers often offer incentives in the form of free food and housing, albeit in crowded, dirty dormitories. The workers, mostly rural Chinese unwilling to perform hard labor, are young, between 18 and 25. But their toil is not the eye-straining assembly of electronics or the tedious molding of plastic toys. These workers “farm” virtual gold.
The popularity of online games, especially massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) is increasing tremendously in developing and first-world countries. In China, “nearly one in four internet users…play online games,” writes Barboza (2005), estimating that there are 24 million online gamers in that country alone. Games such as World of Warcraft demand the time and attention of players who buy the game and then pay a monthly fee, immersing themselves in a detailed virtual world. Taking on fictional personas in the form of “avatars,” gamers strive to improve the skills, armor, and...