“Devirtualize” versus “devirtualize”

A few days ago I learned a new word. “Today I devirtualized to a student,” a friend who is a teacher told me, usually online. He devirtualized This seemed strange to me, I didn’t know if she actually said deformedof decrease: “To change the true nature of something.” “To remove the virtue, substance or vigor of something.” I didn’t understand anything.

My friend clarified it to me: “Devirtualize It’s when you meet someone in person after having had contact via a screen. Inside DLEhe Dictionary academies, this neoterm does not come, but FundéuRAE talks about it: “The verb devirtualizewhich means “to meet in person someone with whom a virtual relationship has already been established”, is well constructed according to the rules of word formation in Spanish, so its use is considered appropriate. »

The rise of social networks, video meetingsof the webinar (a term which is not included in the DLEand which I find online defined as “a live-streamed online educational presentation, during which participating viewers can submit questions and comments” and other similar tools and formats, has meant that in fact, Many We now meet more new people through a screen than in person. We will eventually devirtualize some of them, others not.

The transition from online to face-to-face knowledge sometimes leads to notable imbalances in perception, or even great disappointments. As in the past, when we gave a voice on the radio a face and eyes and it bore no resemblance to the idea we had of it, today a certain devirtualization has resulted in a distortion, when neither the nature, nor the virtue, nor the substance, nor the vigor that someone was supposed to have turned out to be true.

Media changes, technology changes, but the human essence changes little. It’s always the same. The same is not true of language, always in perpetual change, always evolving. And here we look at it.