(Conference Paper, PHAVISMINDA Conference, University of San Carlos, 2014)
This
paper is an attempt to investigate virtual reality and online social media. It tackles the power and limits of online
technology, analyzes the importance of online social media to democratic
citizenship, and its capacity to create wealth in the consumer world. However,
it also argues that online relationships somehow reduce humans into cyborgs and
more fundamentally, it asserts that online technology – that flat world[1]
phenomenon as Thomas Friedman calls it – has only increased the huge divide
between rich and poor.