Virtual World No Substitute for Real One
Ana Veciana-Suarez

If I ever harbored any doubt that the physical world is sidling over to the virtual, two news items have erased, once and for all, those reservations. The keypad and screen are about to replace the gentle voice and the concerned countenance of a real, live person across the table. Not to sound alarmist, but that day is nigh.

Consider this: A $1.99 iPhone app intended to help users through the Catholic sacrament of confession has topped the charts on Apple's "Lifestyle" application charts and has captured the interest even of those who don't share the faith, exceeding the developers' wildest expectations.

And this: You can now find a date by app. One app uses Global Positioning System technology to find an interested single near your favorite hangout. Another, OmniDate, lets a user employ an animated avatar to appear in an animated chat room for a first date. There are also in-app purchases for virtual gifts like candy hearts and teddy bears. (An admission is necessary here. I was forwarded a teddy bear for Valentine's Day by a man who is not my husband. It was relatively innocuous.)

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Confessing -- the act of admitting you've done something wrong, expressing true contrition and then vowing to not do it again -- is not an easy process even for the most faithful. A 2008 study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, a non-profit center that conducts research on Catholic Church issues, reported that 45 percent of Catholics never participate in the sacrament and only 26 percent own up to their sins by talking to a priest once a year.

Dating is also difficult, if for different reasons. Allowing oneself to be vulnerable, to take a risk, to face rejection can be painful, not unlike submitting to dental work without Novocaine. It's safer, as a friend once told me, to stay home and ignore the stirrings of one's heart. The television or a rented movie rarely leaves you raw and aching.

Whether it's confessing, looking for love, or keeping in touch with friends, technology has granted us the ability to shrink distance and flatten obstacles, to smooth the invariably bumpy way of interpersonal relations. The confession app, for instance, provides a "custom examination of conscience based upon age, sex and vocation (single, married, priest or religious)." It also gives you the option "to add sins not listed in the standard examination of conscience."

Tap the "Examination" icon (a magnifying glass) and peruse a list of the Ten Commandments, which in turn ask a series of probing questions. If you're into this kind of thing, the specificity is quite helpful to narrow down exactly what you've done wrong.

Not everybody is interested in 'fessing up, of course. But plenty of people might want to use another app -- the one that allows you to check out the compatibility of a first date. As an avatar in a chat room, the exit is a handy-dandy click away. No need to exercise manners.

But by allowing us to limit our exposure -- not a bad thing on its face -- high tech has armed us with a dangerously shallow alternative. Examining your conscience isn't the same as looking up movie times, and virtual candy hearts will never taste like chocolate truffles. The screen should be the prompter, the ice-breaker, the facilitator: nothing more.

As the co-founder of the animated avatar site told a Miami Herald reporter, "We use technology and virtual technology for one purpose, to help people get into the real life in a much more comfortable way."

Quite simply, there's no substitute for the real thing.