Immersive Illness

Immersive Illness will add onto the current distractions and addictions people already have towards technology.  With the internet, mobile phones, and most video games, people have the option to opt out or to put down the device.  Immersive technologies like virtual reality headsets will have people engulfed in a 360 degree HD view and surrounded by 3D sounds.  Virtual Reality will literally become some peoples reality.

We have seen how video game addiction can cause people not to take care of themselves, not eat, not leave their house, quit school and or work.  Virtual reality will take the video game addiction to the next level because it is more immersive and more real.  It will entice more people to be engaged in this virtual reality because it is incredible.  It is becoming noticeable how communicating via cell phone text or using social media is teaching the younger generations how to communicate differently.  People are becoming used to long distance or almost artificial relationships because of less interaction in person.  Interaction in person is natural, as real as virtual reality can seem to some people, it is still  not reality.

Even though the event of virtual reality becoming mainstream is great in so many other aspects, there will be downsides that will specifically have a large impact in the younger generations.  Some people will be literally living in a virtual cave and have almost no experience with the real world.  My worry is that virtual reality can eventually become so real, that some people will not only be addicted to the gaming aspect of it, but completely live their lives in this realm.  People will eventually and even not have two realities they will be able to live in, one being endless in one aspect, the other being real.    It seems like eventually meeting and hanging out online in VR will be more mainstream than people hanging out in person.

VR and other immersive technologies can create a lot of good, but it is important that people be trained to understand that it is not real.  If people make it their lives and lose touch with reality, or have an augmented reality, they will eventually develop psychological and social problems. We cannot underestimate the power of immersive technology.  We have seen how much technology has transformed in the past decades and how much impact television, cellphones, and social media have had.  

"A challenge that concerns me the most is lurking on the horizon, one we don't yet understand the full scope of. As Immersive Education and other forms of personal virtual reality become more realistic and compelling we're going to see "immersive illness" become more common and more difficult to deal with. Although this is an issue today we're somewhat protected by the limitations of today's personal computers and game consoles (they just aren't powerful enough...yet), but in another decade or more it'll be a different story altogether. Nobody knows exactly what impact insanely realistic, media-rich virtual reality will have on society. We're already dealing with early forms of immersive illness, such as addiction, alienation, mental schisms, and more, but today it's not a problem that affects a large percentage of users. We don't see massive problems today for a number of reasons, including rather low-quality virtual environments and limitations on how much time we spend in these environments. But what happens when the visual and audio quality becomes indistinguishable from reality, the technology becomes truly mainstream, and a substantial portion of education takes place in such environments and not in a real classroom? With massive power comes massive problems. Last week I was asked how big this problem will be, and I responded that nobody knows for sure but I'd estimate that the at-risk population can be calculate by adding the percentage of people with addiction problems to the percentage of society that suffer some form of mental illness. That's a big chunk of society. Is it all gloom and doom? Certainly not, but it's a grand challenge we're not even remotely prepared for today. As with other disruptions society will eventually adapt, but I think we're in for a very rough ride."

Professor Aaron Walsh from the interview "Virtual reality and higher education: Another perspective" at  http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/teaching_in_vr_.html