Since we are small, we have been always reminded of the importance of doing sports for maintaining good health. However, a new kind of sports ‘virtual sports’ is promoted to the public, especially the young generation. Virtual sports players use electronic devices to “put themselves” in a designated environment and carry out sports activity indoors. This may seem fascinating. Yet, in my opinion, real sports are better than virtual sports.
First and foremost, playing real sports provides us with more chances to keep in touch with nature. Nowadays, people are always busy with their academic studies or work, and have a heavy life burden. Doing sports helps them to relieve stress, especially in a natural environment, as they could get rid of those messy thoughts for a short period of time. In the real natural environment like parks, people could enjoy the natural beauty and take a deep breath of fresh air while they are doing sports. As players are not kept indoors and limited by some electronic devices, they could have free and direct contact with nature. Players could feel the breeze when they are running while enjoy the beautiful voice of sparrows on the way. After releasing all their energy and feeling exhausted, sports players could also take a rest on a soft, green pasture, letting the nature refresh their inner spirit. For virtual sports players, no matter how advanced the technology is, the connection between the nature and human can never be replicated.
Moreover, doing real sports can improve the relationship between people, leading to social harmony. Let’s imagine that you are running in the park alone and meet your classmate, neighbour or working partner who is not close to you. What would you do? Even though you may not immediately chat with him at that moment, you could share the same interest and related topics in your further daily interactions. As time passes, you could understand more about the person and become friends with each other. When you and your friend go doing sports together again, you might have a supportive partner, encouraging you not to give up verbally and also through eye contact and physical touch. With common interest and frequent contact in daily life, it enhances making friends and fosters human bonding. Conversely, you might not be that confident to make friends with others in the virtual world. People understand and consider whether they should make friends with others in various aspects. Personality and common interests would undoubtedly be important factors. In virtual sports games, players cannot read each others’ mind through their window of spirit. As people could not get hints from the heartfelt emotion through body gesture and facial expressions of their partners, they might not be sure about how others think of them. Therefore, they might not know whether the others are trustworthy.
On the other hand, virtual sports has its advantages which are quite attractive to players, so this type of sports could be widely supported or even have the trend of replacing doing real sports. In fact, players are not limited by any environmental constraints in virtual games. When we are doing real sports outdoors, we must pay attention to the environment and weather. Once it becomes unstable for any sports activities, we should stop at once for our own safety. It is frustrating, isn’t it? In the virtual world, where the players’ conditions and sport environment could be controlled by players, this will never be a problem or concern anymore. Players could do virtual sports at any time that they prefer or create a favourable environment for sports just with the technical support of the electronic devices and computer systems. People could enjoy doing virtual sports much more easily and readily as a result.
From the above, it is obvious that there are unique characteristics of both types of sports. However, after discussing the importance of these benefits, enjoying the natural environment and maintaining good social relationships seem to be more important in the real world than the convenience of doing sports in the virtual world. As a conclusion, doing real sports is better than doing virtual sports in my opinion.