This week's prompt is about VR or virtual reality, it's advantages and it's disadvantages. There's the question of if virtual reality will be a blessing or a curse to humanity.
What Is Virtual Reality?
VR also known as virtual reality is a technology that creates a simulated, 3D environment that lets users interact with it like they interact with the real world. Virtual Reality can be used to simulate a real life environment and users can interact with that simulated environment as you would do in real life.
That means with virtual reality a picture of you sitting in class taking a lecture can be simulated and you'd able to sense it as if it were real. Virtual reality also repsonds to your body movements as you use the technology, for example you can pick up objects in the 3D simulated environment you're viewing through the headsets.
There's a similar technology called Augmented Reality but the difference between the two is that while virtual reality (VR) completely replaces your environment with a virtual one, augmented reality (AR) places digital elements in your physical environment.
A Brief History Of Virtual Reality
Many people who know about virtual reality think they are a new technology but virtual reality has been around for many years. Virtual Reality was first conceptualized by a computer scientist known as Ivan Sutherland in the 1960s. Through the years, the virtual reality tech continued to evolve and get better. It was first experimented with in the military and universities, then it was explored in the medical field before recently it's being used widely for entertainment purposes and in gaming experiences.
Virtual Reality was way costly in the past during its early days, but with the invention of more advanced and sophisticated VR software and hardware VR has become less costly and easier to use.
Things People Use Virtual Reality To Do
Gaming & Entertainment: Gamers Use Virtual Reality to enjoy an immersive gaming experience. Gamers who use VR can interact with the games the way you can interact with a real environment. Also people can attend concerts or movie halls using virtual reality and it would feel as if they were really there.
Education: VR is widely used to educate people. It can help to create real life simulations of educative environments or situations. For example, students in a class can use VR to conduct experiments in a lab without visiting a real lab. Or VR can be used by students to explore the biological make-up of plants or animals they have never seen in real life.
Healthcare: VR is widely employed in the medical field to threat a range of illness. For example a therapist can give her patient therapy using virtual reality. It can be used for rehabilitation exercises for injured people or people who've suffered a stroke.
Architecture And Real Estate: With the help of VR, people can have a virtual tour of buildings or properties they want to buy. They can inspect the properties without the need to visit it. Imagine taking a tour of a building or property you want to purchase without spending money to travel there. Amazing isn't it?
Military: VR is employed by the military to simulate real-life combat scenarios during practice and drills which help them prepare for real life combat situations.
From the above the reader can deduce that VR is a very important piece of technology. But of course everything with advantages also has disadvantages. Let's see the negative impact of VR.
Anyone who read about the possible uses of VR will want to try it out. It has the potential to make our daily lives a lot easier than before.
Bonus Fact: Do you know there's a social media platform where you can use virtual reality to meet and interact with people like you'd do in real life? Exciting, isn't it? The platform is called Meta Horizon Worlds – it is owned by Meta (Facebook). Of course you'd need VR hardware and software to use it.
Demerits Of Virtual Reality
High-end VR equipments are costly which makes it inaccessible to some people.
Virtual Reality can cause health troubles such as eye strain and motion sickness especially if it's used too much. It can cause disorientation to the senses and blur the line between virtual experiences and reality, possibly leading to dangerous hallucinations.
Imagine somebody who's walking the mainroad but doesn't sense the cars in front of him because his senses has been blurred by the overuse of virtual reality. Imagine if he's crushed by the car?
Another serious demerit is that virtual reality can also become addictive especially when oversued in gaming.
My Take On The Issue
I would say the advantages of VR far outweigh it's disadvantages. Instead of discouraging it's use, scientists should rather work to eliminate the disadvantages. Like creating a VR that doesn't strain the eye, interfer with our realities, cause motion sickness, etc.
Imagine taking a lesson in biology about a dangerous creature and it's habitat and you never have to visit it's habit. Imagine taking a lecture about a rare plant or animal without going through the hassel of finding that plant or animal. Imagine being in another country and inspecting a house you want to buy without ever visiting the location of the house. Imagine being on a hospital bed and attending your sister's or daughter's wedding using VR as if you were there. The possibilities are exciting and endless.
There's no doubt VR can make our life better. It's a technology we should all embrace.
I read a story of an Asian surgeon who recently used technological equipments which involved VR to perform a surgical operation on a patient who was in another country. The surgeon didn't have to be in that country but he carried out the medical procedure flawlessly. This can help save lots of life. There are many people who lost their lives because they could be taken in time to hospitals where they would be cured.
Conclusion
VR is a generational technology, it would change how we live in positive and boundless ways. My opinion is that since it's advantages outweigh it's disadvantages, we should embrace and adopt it, and tey to eliminate or manage its demerits, because every tech we use has its disadvantages.
All images generated using MetaAi.
Thanks for reading.