Vidal Carnero 1

Berta Vidal Carnero

Dr. Klebaur

PSYCH 1500

30th April 2021

My Virtual Life reflection paper 2

For the past few weeks in class, we have been learning about adolescence and

adulthood. Simultaneously, we were experiencing adulthood with our virtual avatar through

the simulation My Virtual Life. This program was helpful to consolidate our knowledge of

the physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development that we were learning about in

class. This paper is a reflection on the overall virtual experience of being an adult, how it

helped me in the class, what it taught me, and how I am going to use it.

Experiencing adulthood virtually was as useful as it was challenging. It was

challenging because I am an indecisive young adult and so have been trying to avoid thinking

about the future. Yet, I wanted my avatar to be successful and happy. To accomplish that,

attention to detail, self-reflection, and effort had to be an essential part of the decisions I

made throughout the simulation. Luckily, the effort was worth it. Since, as mentioned before,

it helped emphasize the concepts discussed in class lectures’. For example, some of the

questions during Emerging Adulthood in the simulation were regarding attitudes towards

dating, future goals, ways to figure out what one wants and likes to do, relationship with

alcohol and drugs, and behaviors that should be changed. These stages in the avatar´s process

exemplified the decisions and questions that young adults ask themselves as they grow up.

Erikson explains this time of difficulty to establish an identity and relationships in the stages

of Identity v. Role Confusion and the Intimacy v. Isolation of his psychosocial development

theory (Lally and Valentine-French, 19).

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The simulation was not only helpful to get a better grasp of concepts in class, but it

also opened my eyes to some things that we are going to experience as adults, but I had never

thought of before. For instance, making financial retirement plans; I realized that saving a

chunk out of a salary every month, and putting it into a savings account may be helpful.

Eventually, it allows people to retire earlier if they wish to do so thanks to their smart

financial decisions. During my adult simulation, I was really careful with money, and still, I

lived a comfortable life while saving extra money for a retirement plan. Seeing how well that

turned out, I talked to my mom and the bank, and we opened my own savings account, which

will hopefully reduce overall stress throughout adulthood, and therefore help improve my

overall health.

On a less positive note, the virtual simulation also made me think about the loss of

loved ones. As it is natural, we age, and like us, so do our parents. Therefore, once we are in

early-middle adulthood, our parents will be closer to death. Apart from the fact that we may

have to take care of them at the same time as we are taking care of our children, becoming

part of the sandwich generation, we will also have to accept the fact that they are going to die

sooner rather than later, and that our lives we will have to keep going on without them.

In addition, My Virtual Life incorporates realistic situations. For example, my

simulation involved a boomerang child, which once again was a surprising situation for me.

Boomerang kids are young adults who move back with their parents after having lived

independently (Lally and Valentine-French, 347). I envision my children´s future as them

being successful enough to become independent and not need my help since a young age.

Additionally, I never imagined going back to my parents’ house later in life, let alone having

my kids do that.

Looking back, I enjoyed both simulations of My Virtual Life (raising a virtual child

and being a virtual adult). Besides, they have been essential to successfully understand the
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class concepts and seeing how those apply in real life. Now that both of the simulations are

done, I have realized that raising my child was not nearly as difficult as making decisions as

my virtual adult. When raising a child, it was easy to identify the better answers, and which

ones were going to give you good, or at least average, children as an outcome. However,

making decisions as an adult, I was completely lost. As I went through my adult years it

became easier, since I liked the life I was living. Hopefully, this will also be the case in real

life, and my children and I will be as successful as our avatars.

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Citations

Lifespan Development: a Psychological Perspective, by Martha Lally and Suzanne

Valentine-French, 2nd ed., College of Lake County, 2019, pp. 19. 

Lifespan Development: a Psychological Perspective, by Martha Lally and Suzanne

Valentine-French, 2nd ed., College of Lake County, 2019, pp. 347.