Virtual Realities with Human Consequences

Peeking into the realm of virtual reality, therein lies a narrative of boundless possibilities and profound societal implications. With major tech companies iterating to create better and better hardware every year, the applications of VR expand and continue to get better, particularly as a tool for both escapism and enlightenment. VR has the potential to completely change how society relaxes, learns, behaves, and understands people, which predicts revolutionary benefits and some potential downsides that society must balance. However, by taking an active role in understanding its current applications and further specifying the definition of “reality” and responsibility with respect to VR, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic about the technology. 

At its core, “virtual reality” or VR, is a computer-simulated, immersive experience living in place of reality. Traditionally, virtual reality involves an experience machine sitting at the forefront of the human-computer interaction, oftentimes in the form of a headset (a head-mounted display) that immerses its user in computer-simulated reality. Sometimes paired with gloves to further the immersion with haptics or touch-like sensations, the technology acts as a blank canvas on top of which a simulated reality can be produced (Danaher 3). There also exist forks of virtual reality, including extended reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, which describe the degree to which the user is immersed. “Augmented reality” has been of particular interest lately, which instead of a complete illusion of virtual space, mixes virtual elements with objects existing in the user’s physical environment (Spiegel 1518; Alcañiz et al. 1). 

2024 is an incredibly exciting time for the area of virtual reality, particularly because of advancements in augmented reality hardware. Although resemblances of modern VR technology started bubbling under in the 1980s, now, most major American tech companies have an arm in the virtual reality hardware space, each targeting slightly different consumers and sectors of society (Celine Tricart 1). Google has “Google Cardboard,” which brings VR technology to the masses with a handheld cardboard device that relies on the user’s smartphone for the immersive display, making it both extremely accessible and affordable. Meta has the “Meta Quest” (formerly Oculus Rift), which focuses on everyday consumers with a high-quality, reasonably built, all-inclusive device that offers a comprehensive VR experience. Apple’s “Vision Pro” is similar, but it targets a new but now fundamental segment in the space, providing a premium VR experience that is notably innovative. Last, Microsoft and their HoloLens series target industry, as the headset is built to be unobstructive and beneficial for professionals in fields such as healthcare, education, and manufacturing. This diverse lineup of VR hardware not only caters to the needs of different consumer segments, but it also opens society up to a tremendous amount of new possibilities.

With VR hardware advancing at an accelerated pace, the most promising use-cases of VR are more real than ever, each taking unique advantage of the technology’s ways of producing experiences. Most notably, VR is an incredible platform for entertainment, potentially changing how society relaxes. From immersive video games in the Meta Quest 3, to Google Cardboard’s virtual trips around the World Wonders, and now Apple Vision’s theater-like 3D movies, each offer ways to escape reality from the comfort of a user’s home. Emphasizing the power of these experiences, “reminiscence therapy” emerged, where VR is used to produce a virtual experience that someone otherwise would not be able to experience. In senior care communities, for instance, VR headsets can be used to allow residents to revisit their childhood and adult homes using Google Street View or even travel places they have never been, which has allowed some individuals to demonstrate more social behavior and require less medication for anxiety (Fuchs).

While VR’s innovation in entertainment is exciting for a myriad of reasons, it is essential to consider the critical perspectives that accompany its advancements. Many Americans are familiar with such criticism in the form of movies like “The Matrix,” “The Truman Show,” and “Wall-E,” each having a unique criticism of a future where humans live more in the virtual world than the real world. As Danaher puts it in their essay about virtual reality and the meaning of life, hint that “to live inside the illusion would… [is] to live a less meaningful life” (Danaher, 2022, p. 1). In other words, entertaining movies themselves challenge society to consider the ethical implications of VR for entertainment, including the potential for it to diminish the value of real-world experiences and relationships. Furthermore, it prompts a reflection on the societal impacts of VR, like the potential for it to disconnect humans from the real world and lead to a loss of authentic human experiences.

In addition to how society relaxes, VR also has major implications in transforming how society learns. For one, it enables the visualization of unseen realities of things too small, hidden, fragile, or otherwise inconceivable. For instance, VR can visualize the intricacies of the human heart, enhancing medical students’ anatomical familiarity in preparation for more time-sensitive, real-world scenarios. Moreover, through the recent possibilities of spatial computing, VR is positioned to revolutionize engineering productivity, offering unparalleled opportunities for prototyping, designing, and testing. VR’s convincing levels of immersion extend also to immersive training for drivers, pilots, and military, saving lives by simulating dangerous, but educationally necessary, situations in a safe way. As VR technology advances, it may even reshape traditional classroom learning, facilitating live, synchronous classes from home, thereby expanding educational accessibility and engagement (Hamad and Jia 4–6).

However, the integration of VR in the education system also presents some risks. The sheer immersiveness of VR has the potential to overshadow the importance of hands-on learning and real-world experiences. VR may also cause students to become overly reliant on virtual simulations, which may stunt well-being and preparation for reality’s complexities and unpredictability. Additionally, the high cost of the most convincing VR technologies currently limit its access from many students, potentially exacerbating educational inequalities (Rueda 14).

One way to understand inequality in society is with the saying: “before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.” VR technology has made this concept tangibly possible, and recent studies have found promising ways that VR may transform how society behaves and understands each other. By placing its users in different environments and bodies (avatars) that they feel are real, VR can influence morality through morally relevant experiences that encourage not just emotional empathy, but also cognitive (first-hand) empathy (Rueda 5). Studies have linked VR experience to developing empathic skills, reducing implicit biases, and enhancing pro-environmental awareness and behaviors (Rueda 16). One notable area of interest is environmental behavior. A study on the “effects of embodied experiences in immersive virtual environments” by Sun Joo Ahn, Jeremy Bailenson, and Dooyeon Park found that individuals promote environmental behaviors when they have a rich, interactive experience that puts their life and actions in context. Specifically, individuals were found to use 20% less paper after cutting down a virtual tree, at least in the short-term (Ahn et al. 1).

As exciting as it is for VR to produce behavioral changes in the non-virtual world, there is also the potential that those changes result in poor moral habits and traits. To address this complex issue, it is useful to examine it through various ethical lenses. According to virtue ethics and care ethics, it may help to place a primary focus on cultivating good character traits and caring relationships within VR. Thus, one approach could be strengthening and distributing VR's potential to promote individuals' moral character, empathy, and understanding, whereas violent, deceitful, and harmful experiences could be mitigated. This approach also agrees with the deontological view, which simply aims to not violate fundamental ethical principles. While empirical evidence remains inconclusive, deontology provides a rationale for pursuing a weak precautionary approach in VR regulation, involving limiting virtual applications of VR to those that are ethically acceptable in the real world, at least pending a clearer understanding of the moral implications of virtual reality on society (Rueda 13).

The evolution of VR technology, while not universally embraced currently due to practical concerns, prompts profound philosophical questions about the nature of reality. Brian Chen's discussion on the challenges of adopting VR, or what he deems “face computers,” underscore the hesitancy stemming from the discomfort of integrating technology so intimately into our daily lives. Yet, as tech companies anticipate and bet on widespread adoption, the ethical implications loom especially large. In a future where virtual reality is seamless with the reality understood today as the “real world,” the very question of what is considered real may be up for debate, along with questions of what obligations society has to non-real objects and experiences that may affect society in real ways. In many cases, it is plausible to believe that some virtual environments may become so widespread and causally connected with non-virtual reality that objects inside that environment may be treated as merely different versions of their physical counterparts, nothing more and nothing less (Grabarczyk 6).

With an open future ahead, the challenge of determining the direction and appropriate responses to VR developments remains unresolved. The very existence of virtual reality is a monumental achievement, showcasing a massive testament to the near superpower of modern engineering. However, as a hardware product whose ethical implications are deeply dependent on its real-world applications, the task of harmonizing VR's remarkable capabilities with its inherent limitations falls to those currently utilizing and governing the technology – primarily large tech companies, software developers, and their initial users. The possibility of a single entity controlling an entire version of one's reality is no longer confined to the movies. Just as the movies encouraged regulation of AI, movies should give cause to apply at least a weak precautionary principle to VR, especially as research into VR's potential harms is ongoing. However, instead of fearing the initial, daunting complexities of VR, policymakers, software developers, and early adopters must actively engage in discussions about the evolving nature of VR such that the reality that humanity is creating in the virtual sphere is shaped through comprehensive risk-benefit analyses in harmony with the collective moral compass of society.

In conclusion, virtual reality is an incredibly promising technology which has the potential to completely change how society relaxes, learns, behaves, and understands people, for better or worse. With technology so early in the game, it may be productive to take a techno-optimist stance, as there is plenty of reason to hope that the future of virtual reality is bright. By controlling every aspect of the virtual world, humans have the unprecedented ability to reimagine a reality that reflects its true ideals and values, particularly in the realm of societal ethics. Accordingly, as society navigates the uncertainties of VR, it must remain committed to ethical considerations and the potential of VR to transform not just individual experiences, but also the collective understanding of what it means to live in a world where technology and humans exist as one, in a symbiotic state of harmony.

‍

‍

Works Cited

Ahn, Sun Joo (Grace), et al. “Short- and Long-Term Effects of Embodied Experiences in Immersive Virtual Environments on Environmental Locus of Control and Behavior.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 39, Oct. 2014, pp. 235–45. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.07.025.

Alcañiz, Mariano, et al. “Virtual Reality in Marketing: A Framework, Review, and Research Agenda.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, July 2019. Frontiers, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01530.

Celine Tricart. 1 History of VR. O’Reilly, 2017. learning.oreilly.com, https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/virtual-reality-filmmaking/9781315280394/xhtml/Ch01.xhtml.

Chen, Brian X. “Why Making Face Computers Cool Isn’t Easy.” The New York Times, 24 Jan. 2024. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/technology/personaltech/apple-vr-smart-goggles.html.

Danaher, John. “Virtual Reality and the Meaning of Life.” The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life, edited by Iddo Landau, 1st ed., Oxford University Press, 2022, pp. 508–24. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190063504.013.36.

Fuchs, Matt. “V.R. ‘Reminiscence Therapy’ Lets Seniors Relive the Past.” The New York Times, 6 May 2022. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/well/mind/virtual-reality-therapy-seniors.html.

Grabarczyk, Paweł. “What Is Real in Virtual Reality?” Roczniki Filozoficzne, vol. 72, no. 1, 1, Mar. 2024, pp. 79–98. czasopisma.tnkul.pl, https://doi.org/10.18290/rf24721.5.

Hamad, Ayah, and Bochen Jia. “How Virtual Reality Technology Has Changed Our Lives: An Overview of the Current and Potential Applications and Limitations.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 19, no. 18, Sept. 2022, p. 11278. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811278.

Rueda, Jon. “Doing Good With Virtual Reality.” Exploring Extended Realities, by Andrew Kissel and Erick José Ramirez, 1st ed., Routledge, 2023, pp. 188–212. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003359494-14.

Spiegel, James S. “The Ethics of Virtual Reality Technology: Social Hazards and Public Policy Recommendations.” Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 24, no. 5, Oct. 2018, pp. 1537–50. Springer Link, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-017-9979-y.