The appeal of video games comes from the prospect of being able to interact with a foreign world in convenience. As technology progressed over the years, video gaming systems evolved to elicit the best possible experience for the gamer. We have seen the potential of Nintendo Wii and Xbox Kinect in getting our bodies to interact with a TV screen, but it still seemed to lack the heightened realistic component required to fully immerse ourselves into game. Now, with the advent of virtual reality, companies such as Facebook Inc.'s Oculus Rift, Sony, Samsung and Razer Open Source VR have manufactured devices that allows users to suspend their surroundings for believable worlds. It may seem as if the whole gaming barrier has melted away. However, as one problem is resolved, it opens the path for new health and ethical concerns of this false reality.
The VR headsets have obvious physical drawbacks such as causing nausea, headache, and eye strain. There is also the threat of walking into obstacles present in actual reality. Virtual reality, as a whole, is still incomplete in allowing all senses to work in unison. Our bodies are built specifically to process elements (images, sound, smell, taste, touch) in a a certain way in accord with actual reality, but the slight mismatch from brain to body in virtual reality can lead to "cybersickness" as people are calling it. The long term psychological effects of it are still being studied, but that is no reason to deem VR headsets as safe.
The ethical concerns have placed even higher on the debating platform about this invention. There are three in particular that concern me:
1. The violence depicted on some of the games that appear in virtual reality form are intense and can have a severe impact on the brains of children. In an article from TIME magazine last year, the American Psychological Association released a statement that playing violent video games is linked to aggression, though it may not lead to actual criminal violence. Regardless, this new forum for violent games can further desensitize the population to crime especially now that they look more real than ever.
2. As this technology grows into a larger parasite on reality, it will seek to supplant it. It sounds amazing to have a world that we can manipulate for ourselves. We can live in our imagination everyday, a controlled world of our creation where only events transpire that we want to happen, and resolutions occur how we choose it. It truly does sound great, but what happens when that becomes better than living in reality or we become confused between the two? We could end up like Mal from Inception (2010).
3. One of the bigger concerns that goes along with the former ones mentioned though is the possibility of our bodies being able to be used in virtual reality without our consent or our brain controlling it. Once our bodies have become available on a digitized platform, a computer or other human can control the virtual version of us to act like we never would in reality. Would you want your image to be controlled by someone other than you, doing whatever they willed? I do not want to go into much graphic detail, but you can imagine the horrors.
Despite these concerns, virtual reality definitely has some good aspects. Its scope extends farther than simply video games. It is a new medium for artists, filmmakers, and architects to create and design to their heart's content. It can train workers to be better at what they do. It even has specific benefits in the medical world if memories can be recreated to help Alzheimer patients to reform connections in their brain. Virtual reality can impact essentially every industry.
There are benefits and costs to all new technologies, and it is critical to weigh them both. This invention is already here, so we have to use it wisely. I sincerely hope that it is used only as an aid for reality rather than a new world, but there is no telling what exactly will happen in the years to come. All I can say is that, virtual reality will have a impact on our futures, but it is up to us to determine the extent.
