The idea of V.R becoming reality has arrived sooner then expected. What was once a dream in the eyes of science fiction has now become a great tool and experience for all. V.R offers numerous experiences and uses from assistive technologies such as snow world for burn victims treatments, V.R chat an app that allows people to make avatars and communicate via the internet in real time, similar to the programme second life, top having useful programmes such as google earth V.R allowing people to get a virtual up close experience with the streets of Venice to mount Rushmore and other technologies that allow for artistic expression such as Kingspray Graffiti. Virtual reality is also used in fields where equipment is scarce and expensive such as medical programmes used to train paramedics and surgeons allowing the realism of a life-threatening situation which has leads to ready and able personnel being produced (Bardi 2019). Police and soldiers have raid simulators and combat simulators allowing them to be prepared at all times for any scenario in a safe and controlled environment without the risk of themselves or others. Pilots have received an upgrade as well from using a computer with Microsoft flight simulator where they can get a 3d view outside the plane to being in a V.R cockpit itself allowing them a more realistic situation and scenario as opposed to being able to see outside the plane at all times.
However, one ethical concern is that the participants of the virtual training may overestimate their capabilities, Stanford University research has shown that V.R can influence a person’s real-world activities. These can include treating virtual people as if real and researchers also found that the avatars had the same presence as a real human would such as someone observing you from over the shoulder completing a task (Sashkevish 2019). Stanford also did a social experiment in 2018 where they had people play a short seven-minute game called “being homeless” this was an experiment aimed towards seeing if V.R could create empathy within people (Sashkevish 2018). The game has a narrator who tells out the story of how you became homeless and you watch from the first-person perspective in V.R. So what did this prove? The results found that the V.R setting produced more empathic responses as it removed the imagination aspect of the scenario, when people imagine being made homeless or other such tragic scenarios it may tend to spiral into other topics and designs influenced by their own personal circumstances, this software removes the personal circumstance and places you at the mercy of the system. The programme outperformed the other test method, with 82% in the first V.R experience and 85% in the second signing a petition to help the homeless as opposed to the written script which yielded 67% the first time and 63% the second time. The power of V.R and removing the personal circumstance helped visualise the scenario for the participants, using this knowledge of visualisation and being able to experience the world through new lenses I think many agree that this platform will integrate into education as an excellent tool to be used by subject teachers and other areas of school life. This new form of cultural tool (Wertsch 1998) can be used to help with tolerance with programmes like “being homeless” instead targets towards bullying or cyberbullying (Proffitt 2017) putting students in scenarios, allowing them to be in a safe environment whilst having a hands-on experience (Cybersmile 2016) of what to do when in someone’s position allowing them to empathise with victims, knowing the signs of a victim and how to help them. This can also be applied to mental health showing people how it may feel to have anxiety, however these software’s would need extensive testing as to not artificially generate a imbalance in the students mental state and see that consent is given via parents as to not have students be unfordable under good intentions.
The Potential of VR Technology 