Wall-E But Worse? Virtual Reality and How We Might All Become Zombies

A mildly unrealistic view of what happens to you in VR. (6)
Picture this: humans of the future, living in an ideal world without conflict or reason for fear, perhaps with superhuman abilities or infinite lives. This future may be possible far sooner than you might imagine, and it's all thanks to one technology: virtual reality. Virtual reality, or VR, is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "an artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (such as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment" (1). The big plastic boxes attached to people's heads have not always been the case, however. Let's take a look at where VR came from.


 The Past


 Okay, so that may have been a lie. In fact, plastic boxes mounted to the face have pretty much been the standard for VR since the beginning. While the exact origin of VR is disputed, an early ancestor of the technology was the "Telesphere," an invention by Morton Heilig that he described like so: "The spectator is given a complete sensation of reality, i.e. moving three dimensional images which may be in colour, with 100% peripheral vision, binaural sound, scents and air breeze." The device, pictured below, is arguably the first direct ancestor of modern (2). Another notable, novel relative of today's VR is, in fact, the View-Master, which still graces the toy bins of some children today.
(2)
The Present

 Virtual reality became the next big output platform nearly overnight in the early 2010s. Palmer Lucky designed the first design for the vastly-advanced Oculus Rift in 2010, and it was off to the races from there (3). After a massively successful 2012 Kickstarter campaign for Oculus, Facebook kicked off a year and a half of VR insanity that galvanized the industry. In March 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion; Sony announced what would become Playstation VR the same month; Google announced Cardboard two months later; Samsung would announce Gear VR a year later, and Facebook and YouTube created platforms for 360 degree video around the same time. This explosion has seen the market flood with VR devices and content, and has arguably cemented VR as the next true platform for the technology world to explore after mobile has fully developed (4); 360 video is becoming more accessible, and (perhaps more importantly) video games have become more realistic, enjoyable, and accessible on the platform.

 The Future

 While tech moguls and developers are more interested in progress and profits, social scientists and humanists have begun to worry about the potential effects of virtual reality. This type of output is still in its infancy, and, as it grows more accessible, it will become more advanced as well. It is not unlikely to theorize that humans will grow closer and closer to virtually-shared or -dominated lives, and some  academics fear a "migration to virtual space." It remains to be seen what the greater social impacts of VR will be, but it is not hard to see that VR is trending up, and doing so rapidly.

 (1) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtual%20reality
(2) http://www.techradar.com/news/wearables/forgotten-genius-the-man-who-made-a-working-vr-machine-in-1957-1318253/2
(3) https://www.wired.com/2014/03/facebook-acquires-oculus/
(4) https://www.theguardian.com/nbn-bringing-big-tech-to-small-business/ng-interactive/2017/jun/27/grappling-with-the-vr-timeline
(5) Castranova, E. (2007). Exodus to the Virtual World: How online fun is changing reality. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
(6) https://cdn.uploadvr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/welcome-to-gear-vr-1024x581.jpg

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