Virtual Reality Landmines: Deep Immersion ≈ Deep Addiction?

Virtual reality, an interactive technology that is believed to be able to trigger a revolution, is spreading to various scenarios with its deep presence experience, trying to cause screams again and again. The favor of capital, the pursuit of the media, and the enthusiasm of enterprises have made the wave of VR almost fanatical for a period of time.

Social: Does my world still need you?

Facebook's huge investment in the acquisition of Oculus directly reflects the huge potential of virtual reality in social applications. Recently, Zuckerberg directly stated that virtual reality will be the forefront of future communication. So, what is the difference between virtual reality social networking and current online social networking?

AltspaceVR is a startup company focusing on virtual social applications. According to its description, using virtual reality technology, people can not only communicate through text, voice or video, but can even have intimate physical contact. People who are not in the same area can eat, go shopping and watch movies together.

This scene looks more like the familiar process of love. Although people's attitude towards online love is becoming more open, the negative news it brings has never stopped. Virtual reality cannot change the virtual and casual characteristics of the Internet. The experience that is closer to reality will make people more easily fall into it, and once it fails, it will also bring more serious losses.

I wonder how many bad relationships and love debts will be created when virtual reality is combined with social interaction with strangers.

Game: Extreme violence, blood, and horror

Judging from the virtual reality games that have been released so far, the types are mostly concentrated in the following categories: war, fighting, horror, adventure, etc. The reason why game developers are keen on these games is that they mostly grasp the players' pursuit of excitement and indulgence.

During a survey, a foreign game company found that many VR players confined themselves in VR, showing a state that was completely disconnected from real life, and were keen on killing and destruction. On the one hand, deep presence gives players who are under too much pressure in real life a chance to release themselves, but will acting without rules in a scene that is extremely close to reality really not arouse human instincts of violence?

Online games are addictive and can cause schizophrenia, and are known as "electronic heroin." With virtual reality fueling the trend, the trend of evolving into "ice drugs" is also something that cannot be ignored.

Film and TV: Blurring the Lines of Reality

Media culture researcher and critic Postman pointed out in "The Disappearance of Childhood" that under the fierce attack of media such as television, the dividing line between children and adults in the print media age has become increasingly blurred. Adult sexual secrets and violence issues appear in various forms in children's vision, and children are being deprived of the innocent and beautiful childhood they should enjoy.

The advent of virtual reality has enabled movies and TV shows to not only reproduce real life, but also create another "real but non-existent" scene, such as Jurassic Park and Interstellar. Unlike ordinary animations, visual immersion plus deep interaction can easily create a believable feeling.

Wei Kunlin, associate professor of psychology at Peking University, believes that the immersive experience of virtual reality and the way in which objects actively receive information can easily have unpredictable effects on personal cognition. Dependence on the virtual world will, to some extent, become an obstacle to cognition of the real world, especially for children in the cognitive development stage.

Adult applications: The next cause of sexual indifference?

Adult applications are considered by many to be the most likely trigger for virtual reality, and many domestic players have been looking forward to it for a long time. In the short term, the unprecedented visual, auditory, and tactile experience can indeed bring physical comfort and satisfaction to many single players. However, from a long-term perspective, is the self-satisfaction and indulgence of sexual needs really worth celebrating?

According to Huanqiu.com, the Japanese people's enthusiasm for the opposite sex and relationships between men and women has gradually been replaced by sexual indifference, and the severity of the problem is worrying. Some people believe that one of the reasons is that Japan's overdeveloped AV industry has made sex unattractive to the Japanese. The ubiquitous AV has caused young Japanese people, who are visually influenced, to lose their curiosity and yearning for the opposite sex.

Virtual reality adult applications, which are more immersive than traditional AV, can more easily help audiences achieve sexual pleasure, but are also more likely to make people addicted and decadent.

Compared with these problems, the discomfort of the human body to the equipment is easier to detect. At present, when fatigue and dizziness have not been solved, is it too early to consider these problems?

As Jeremy Bailenson, a virtual reality technology advocate, said, the criterion for judging whether a new technology is good or bad is how people use it, not the technology itself. A rational and critical environment may allow new technologies to develop in a safer way, just like artificial intelligence today.

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.