When I first dreamed of VR I lived I a world that was pre internet. Sending letters in the mail was actually the most practical way to communicate and if you needed any kind of product or service you would have to interact with someone. My childhood was a time of human interaction. The thought of telecommuting was amazing. Those few people who were so skilled that they didn’t need to go to an office made you jealous. Most everybody was around people a huge amount of their day. Beyond that growing up even technology such as the TV was considered an accepted evil. TV was not considered good, but at least it wasn’t drugs the was the thought.
In an age like this the thought of disconnecting from reality was very seductive. The idea of “jacking in” to some alternate reality and not simply being part of it, but also being walled off from the real world seemed like a dream come true. A few hours a day of being locked in your own private bubble would have been amazing.
Back then it was something to wish for…
Now..?
In a world where everyone has their noses in smartphones. A time when even couples are watching separate videos on different screens while they are “together”. People live in communities ever more isolated, and with central HVAC and Netflix don’t need to just go outside to while away some time. When Amazon delivers food in the mail, and books to the Kindle without even needing to speak to someone. In a time of profound silence and disconnection is the answer still to lock yourself even further away?
I have to admit… all snark aside… all pompous pseudo intellectualism aside… the idea of VR makes me feel profoundly depressed…
I’m not raging against VR. I’m not saying kids who use VR will not grow up to be upstanding adults. I’m not saying VR will be the death of everything we hold dear. I just know that when I strap VR goggles to my face that beyond the visuals, the sounds, the experience I am having I feel a profound sense of depression. It’s lonely. It’s yet another wall in a time of too many walls. It’s a poorly designed synthetic world that only ends up mirroring how profoundly out of touch the average life is anymore.
Call me a luddite, but I’d rather sit outside in a chair sipping a cup of coffee, watching the butterfly’s flitter by, and wave to my neighbors. It may not be “cool”, but at least it doesn’t make me want to off myself…
Amen, to that. I think that the first virtual reality headset that I ever used was Nintendo Virtual Boy. I didn’t own the system, but I had tried it out and I found it to be clumsy, awkward, and really not virtual reality at all.
Fully immersive VR in the future will help people like the elderly who can’t go anywhere, can’t move, etc… Of-course, the technology will be overused by the general population who doesn’t really need it and depression will go through the roof.
I think what is comparable to the VR world right now is the partnership between Three Square Market and Biohax where they are offering microchip implants to employees. As far as I know this advancement is being used merely as a credit card that is attached to their body. I just don’t think that there is very much of an application for that right now. Would I really want a credit card that I cant get rid of? Ill tell you what, I think that is really not an important thing right now. But I think what could be valuable is a micro chip implant with all your medical information on it. It could have information, as to whether you have had cancer, are a diabetic, what other surgeries and operations you have had, etc. All accessible to a doctor if you have to experience emergency treatment. That, in my opinion, would be truly valuable.