It’s Virtually Here
A couple of weeks ago I tried a virtual reality (VR) system for the first time. My friend has a state of the art home system and they let me try it. I couldn’t believe how real it felt even, though it didn’t actually look completely real. VR has a lot of potentially interesting implications in the real world.
After I took off the equipment my friends and I discussed the implications VR could have on the world. If businesses used this kind of tech, people wouldn’t necessarily have to come to work, they’d be able to just visit the virtual office that everyone else was connected to. This is because possible to walk around in some VR setups, and you can hear sounds from the system, and you can create an avatar, and even your own virtual home. There’s also handsets in systems, or gloves that allow you to interact with the virtual items, and people around you.
This could be an interesting turn for civilization, my friend also noted. If every business in a city went digital, there would be little reason to rent out expensive offices in skyscrapers. There would also be less reason for people to live and spend time in expensive cities because there’s no commute to a virtual workspace. This is a ways off but it’s interesting to consider, and potentially prepare for.
A couple of nights ago I watched Ready Player One (a movie set about 20 years in the future that displays a world centered on VR), and it helped me understand, and picture what kind of effect VR could have on our society as a whole. It was interesting to see how the world in this movie was more about an experience than about a game or a workplace. It was about creating what was impossible in the real world, and at the time in the future that it was set – a better world. The challenge of interacting with others in a virtual world means that anyone can falsify their identity, and you could become too involved with what isn’t real, and on a lighter note, you can’t eat, or smell virtual reality, senses we may take for granted in VR.
VR is a very cool experience, it lets you be creative in a space you can explore and allows you to interact with other’s creations as well. It may have problems, but it could provide excellent opportunities including jobs, creativity, socializing on a world scale, and immersive, challenging gaming. I look forward to seeing how this technology continues to be developed.
