VR Promises and Challenges
In the second week of VR for the mainstream, it’s worth considering the promises and challenges of VR content, as opposed to raw tech. This article summarized some of the recent content issues
But we do know something about content, and the following looks a bit deeper into the promises and challenges of content delivered via VR.
VR Creates Empathy
What is true about VR content? First, a VR experience creates strong emotions. See this presentation by Chris Milk for an example of the VR “empathy machine”:
In another example, Waves of Grace, an Ebola documentary done in 360 video,
The ability to generate empathy shouldn’t be surprising. Just touching an item creates a powerful sense of implied ownership. Being put into a place would be expected to create stronger feelings relative to just looking through a window (screen). A a collaboration between Vrse.works, the UN Millennium Campaign and Vice Media, the film resulted in higher engagement (and donations) from viewers.
Gender Imbalance
Second, even when compared to gaming, VR has a skew to male users. Women who’ve used first-generation VR report problems with seating the headset, eye distance, and weight – the devices clearly weren’t designed with them in mind.
http://www.lazygamer.net/virtual-reality-2/virtual-reality-widen-gamings-gender-gap/
http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/11/10749932/vr-hardware-needs-to-fit-women-too
At the Oculus Connect meeting, Palmer Lucky acknowledged that Oculus had a strong bias in its own business composition, with the implication that that bias could migrate into hardware and software design. See this video from the 2014 Oculus Connect 4th keynote, and the response.
It may be that these early experiences drove Oculus to make sure that the Rift was lighter than its competition. Recent reviews by female testers have commented on the relative lightness of the Rift, versus other headsets whose engineers apparently assumed larger average body sizes.
According to this article, gender issues may go even deeper – unconscious design in VR biases the experience to male brains
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3057012/is-virtual-reality-sexist
Now, this is not really a VR issue – it is a design issue. Like so many aspects of technology, design – rather than tech – is the root of the problem. This is good, since these problems can be solved at the design level instead of hardware.
Harassment is Worse in VR
In the earlier waves of virtual worlds (remember Second Live) during the mid-2000s, it was common for a group of avatars in virtual space to be confronted with animated gentials, attacks, even virtual prostitutes. Here, the engagement was limited by a screen, but the ability to harass will be much greater in VR.
Consider the recent swarming attacks on Twitter. Now, imagine those disembodied tweets animated into characters that seem to be in your world, and are coming at you. It’s going to be a problem.
VR Could Make People More Stressed and Distracted
While VR creates new worlds to explore, we already know it has consequences – in particular motion sickness. As VR becomes more mainstream, additional problems are likely to emerge.
In the words of the Daily Dot:
The American Psychological Association has released numerous reports on “the psychological toll of the smartphone,” citing study after study after study finding strong positive correlations between heavy smartphone usage and the symptoms of anxiety, depression, insomnia, and other symptoms of mental illnesses. Video games may produce some cognitive and problem-solving benefits, but they alsomake even moderate gamers more anxious socially phobic. The oft-mocked psychopathology of Internet addiction is breeding generations who seek to calm the symptoms of heavy Internet use with more Internet use.
Virtual reality is no different a false escape—and is likely worse.
The argument here is a bit technophobe – in fact, the author, Gillian Branstetter attacks all forms of computer and Internet use as damaging to the brain. Clearly, some uses of VR help mental illness, anxiety, or phobias. Over-use of VR could become a real problem.
On the other hand, industry lights anticipate problems by supplying more tech. For example check this report that motion sickness in VR may be solved by using electrodes to stimulate the inner ear.
“Hyperconnectivity between these brain networks could lead to a more robust ability to direct attention toward targets, and to recognise novel information in the environment,” said lead author Jeffrey Anderson from the University of Utah. “The changes could essentially help someone to think more efficiently.”
Now, the negative:
The scientists also found increased coordination between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction in the brain, which is a more troubling finding – links like this are associated with schizophrenia, Down’s syndrome, and autism, and are also found in people with poor impulse control. This could point to hardened video gamers being more easily distracted and less self-disciplined.
Truly Audience-Centric
There is a counter to these negative arguments. It is true that the last decades of personal computers and the Internet have led to a body-mind disconnect. People enter a virtual place called “cyberspace” which is disconnect from their actual location and body. To a lesser extent, this has been true ever since plays created a “4th wall” behind which viewers watched the action.
VR, however locates the user in the medium. It creates a re-connection so strong that it is probably going to be even harder than people think to re-work cinema and games for the medium. In VR, the user is not in one place, but really in another – they way you are when you are staring at your Facebook page during a family reunion. You have entered the medium. So, fears of mind-body disconnect may be unfounded, provided designers and storytellers create specifically for the new medium.
As an audience-centric medium, there will be some changes to advertising. VR advertising could be the most invasive thing ever experienced by consumers.