I watched “Ready Player One” last for the first time and as always Spielberg did an amazing job with his creation. The CGI in the virtual reality is truly stunning and it does a great job of truly submerging you in the story. Seeing it in IMAX 3D was definitely the way to see.

One thing that I noticed and so did my boyfriend. The time period in the movie only had two social classes, the mega-rich and dirt poor. There were no middle-class people. You either have tons of money or you’re just barely scraping by.

While I was completely submerged in this visually beautiful tale I couldn’t help but wonder about how close it could be to our own futures. In the movie, the Oasis is the place that all the people go to escape real life because it’s just so miserable. It’s where everyone makes and meets friends. There is no real-world interaction with another person.

Are we headed in that direction? I can’t help but ask because we are so caught up in social media and talking to strangers online versus having an actual conversation with our neighbor. I know people that spend their entire day online pretending to be someone that we really aren’t.

We’ve all been guilty of that at some point I’m sure. Feeling so overwhelmed with life and chores that we just need an escape so disappearing to the online world is the answer. The escape helps but it doesn’t make the problems in the real-world go away.

People have become so mean. We lack the ability and common decency to interact with each other in a nice manor. Communicating with someone online is about the only way that people can tolerate each other. There is no way of knowing for sure who the people we talk to online really are, unless of course its family or friends that we have in the real-world.

With all the access to technology we have today I wouldn’t be surprised that if in a not so distant future there was something like an Oasis for us and the only way we make friends or feel any type of self-worth is being in a virtual world where nothing is real.

Could you imagine what that would be like? No shopping in the real-world, even seeing movies would happen in VR. How lame would that be? I don’t know about you guys, but I would rather live in the real-world instead of living something fake. I don’t want to be the type of person that neglects my family and responsibilities because of the online world. Yes, I socialize with friends and groups, but I never let myself get stuck there. There is a way to disconnect.

I’ve witnessed what staying in a virtual world can do to a person and how much they value what they are worth there and it’s not pretty.

Life is real and it’s beautiful. You just have to take the time to notice it.