Virtual reality concerns: What you don’t see may not be harmless

The enthusiasm of capital, the hype of the media, and the endorsement of bigwigs have made everyone unconsciously excited about talking about the "future" when talking about the topic of "virtual reality". It seems that the whole world is looking forward to what novel changes this technological revolution will bring to our lives.

It has to be said that the market pie of hundreds of billions is indeed tempting, and the players involved are reluctant to pour cold water on it before they get a share of it. However, the evolution of technology always has both advantages and disadvantages. Who dares to say that there are no "mines" buried on the road to the virtual era?

Virtual or real? I can't tell the difference

There is a scene in "Inception": In a small cramped room, many people are lying in a mess, falling asleep. They are all those who abuse reagents and want to indulge in beautiful dreams forever and never want to wake up. Is it possible for virtual reality to become such a "reagent"?

Professor Frank Steinicke and Professor Gerd Bruder, researchers at the University of Hamburg in Germany, once conducted an experiment in which they placed several volunteers in an immersive virtual reality environment for 24 hours, during which they were asked to take a simple break every two hours. As the experiment progressed, the volunteers not only felt nauseous from time to time, but also gradually began to confuse the real world with the virtual world. Studies have shown that the immersive feeling of virtual reality can cause cognitive impairment to users.

Angelica Ortiz de Gortai, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, believes that wearing virtual reality devices for a long time will increase the probability of suffering from "game transfer syndrome". Its clinical manifestations include: hearing the sound of the game when falling asleep; even worse, when the wearer of the virtual reality device drives on the highway, he will subconsciously enter the roundabout driving mode to avoid landmines. Once someone gets sick while operating machinery or driving, the consequences are disastrous.

Perhaps one day, the richness and excitement of the virtual world will make people tired of the boring real life, and they can only get satisfaction through sensory immersion and seek venting and even liberation in another free-spirited world.

"Can I still hug you in the virtual world?"

At the 2016 MWC World Mobile Communications Conference, Zuckerberg appeared at Samsung's new product launch conference to support the VR sector. Someone predicted: "We will be separated from reality and enter the world of virtual reality. We will become slaves, and the owners of social media will rule us."

Judging from the impact of smartphones on human social interaction, such speculation is definitely not alarmist. There is no shortage of such scenes in life: friends or family sit together, each with their eyes fixed on their phones, busy with text messages, WeChat and Weibo, and the only thing that is suspended is the real communication between each other.

Mobile phones can dilute reality, let alone the completely immersive and isolated experience that "blinds" the eyes? During the filming of the movie "Ready Player One", director Stephen Spielberg expressed his views on virtuality and reality: "Ready Player One is like a crystal ball that predicts the future. Through this crystal ball, you can see what may happen in the next 5 to 10 years, not 30 or 40 years later. In the movie, the virtual world has almost become a drug. The time we spend in the virtual world every day is much more than the time we spend eating and interacting with people in real life."

Will the combination of Gear VR and Facebook bring us a world enslaved by virtual social interaction? When your lover is immersed in a virtual world full of flowers and fragrance, will hugging become a luxury?

Breaking through the dimensional wall: the ultimate approaching destruction?

As mentioned above, virtual reality technology has blurred the boundary between virtual and reality to a certain extent. To put it in a slightly more "secondary" way, it breaks the barrier of the dimensional wall and allows those characters that originally only appeared on the screen to "live" around us.

Because it cannot simulate gravity and tactile sensations, virtual reality technology is still limited to an experience of separating the body from the brain, far from the standard depicted in "Sword Art Online". If one day, the development of this technology breaks through to the point of hibernation capsules, using technology similar to the insertion of a tube behind the brain to completely deceive the visual and tactile nerves, as depicted in Conan's early theatrical version of "The Phantom of Baker Street", then for people with a strong desire for exploration, including otaku, breaking the barrier of the dimensional wall and realizing their ultimate dream is an inevitable choice.

In another world, with all seven emotions and six desires, and experiencing birth, aging, sickness and death, are humans still really humans?

Compared with robots, people's attitude towards virtual reality technology seems much milder. Alphago's victory brings more fear to humans: Will artificial intelligence replace humans one day? But don't forget that there is another detail in "The Matrix": humans are connected to the virtual world and reduced to energy supply. Perhaps the threat of replacement comes not only from artificial intelligence, but also from virtual reality.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.