Episode 5: VR Pessimism

I am a VR pessimist. Let me tell you why. Oddly enough, I mean, first of all, I've loved and worked with technology basically my whole life.
I, as a kid, loved computers, built computers, tinkered with things. I remember watching, and apparently this movie is just considered a terrible movie.
But as a kid, at least I enjoyed it. I remember watching Lawnmower Man, which was all about VR.
I mean, among other things, but there was a huge VR component to it. I thought that was really cool.
As I grew older, I ended up working in technology as a developer and an integrations person and a manager and a leader and all sorts of other things.
But it was all centered around technology. I continue to enjoy technology.
And I have several consumer-grade VR headsets. I've bought several of them over the time.
And I like them. They're fun.
In fact, when I was working in a particular part of my career, I was also involved in an AR, VR, XR, you know, virtual reality, mixed reality, augmented reality, the whole thing.
Kind of, I don't know what to call it exactly, think tank sort of thing.
It was a group of people who would come together every so often to discuss the various applications of AR, VR, XR in, in this case, in higher education and adjacent sorts of markets.
All of that, honestly, was a very formative thing.
It was really cool to be involved in that.
But I am still a VR, VR specifically pessimist.
And I should say, when I say pessimist, I don't mean that VR doesn't have a place.
And I don't mean, I'm not even necessarily talking about VR in the context of maybe work environments.
Because I think that there is, I mean, time is seen, there are huge benefits to being able to use VR for things like skills training in particular industries.
You know, truck drivers being able to learn.
There's medical procedures that surgeons and doctors can be trained on at least up to a certain point using VR.
We've seen great advances in terms of being able to use it to reduce things like phobias for people's mental health.
We've seen it.
We've been able to see it reduce anxiety and stress around public speaking.
There are many, many, many applications of virtual reality.
What I'm talking about is on, in particular, the consumer side.
And when you start getting into some of these things like the metaverse and the idea that people will just live in this virtual world, I'm a pessimist there.
I don't really buy it.
But the core of why I don't think this is really a realistic thing that we will see in our lifetimes, again, for mass consumption, I'm not saying it doesn't exist.
I'm not saying people don't take advantage of it here and there.
I'm not saying that it's not even things that people tap into once in a while.
Well, I'm saying as a daily thing that people really dive into and becomes a natural part of our existence, I just don't see it happening.
And the core of my argument comes down to isolation.
And this is where the distinction, I think, comes up between VR, virtual reality, and AR, augmented reality.
I'm a big augmented reality optimist.
I think augmented reality is where it's at.
But it seems to me that augmented reality is a – and it's a little bit of an unfair – it's like a heavyweight boxer versus a lightweight one or something.
By the way, I know nothing about boxing.
AR is such a broad term.
It can be defined in so many ways.
It could – you could stretch that definition for – in many – to mean many things.
For instance, we see augmented reality glasses that are trying to hit the market here and there.
That's the idea of having a screen in front of your eyes at all times.
That's one version of augmented reality.
When you talk about things that you can do on your phone where you pull up your phone with your camera and you can kind of scan the real world and it shows you other things about it, that's a version of augmented reality.
When you're talking about the ability to – even having someone – some of these apps where someone is speaking to you in a different language and it's translating it for you in real time, that's a version of augmented reality.
So it's kind of unfair to compare augmented reality and virtual reality because augmented reality to me is a much larger umbrella that covers many, many more potential sub-disciplines or sub-products or whatever compared to virtual reality, which to me is a much more specific thing.
You are leaving the existing world, the real world, and you are diving into a virtual one in a very all-encompassing and – and this is the point I'm trying to make – a very isolating manner.
When you put on virtual reality, goggles, glasses, headsets, usually headsets, you are now closed off from the outside world, which for certain things is exactly what you want.
Like if you want to dive into VR and you want to play a game for a little while to be fully immersed or watch a movie for a while that's fully immersed, that could be fun.
However, to have that be part of your day, day in and day out, as a core experience, human beings are not built to sustain isolation like that.
Even something like watching a movie while all attention – like let's say you're watching a movie with some friends on a couch.
While the attention might be on the movie, the physical presence and some of the cues you're picking from other people, hearing them laugh, watching their body language even at the core of your eye, grabbing – you know, chairing some popcorn, like whatever.
Those experiences make that – those experiences make that a non-isolating experience.
It's still a social or a social-adjacent experience.
As soon as you trap yourself into a headset and you close off the world, you are no longer – you are now running against the nature of the human experience.
And I don't think, generally speaking, a technology like that is something that over time, once the novelty has worn off, once you've kind of figured out the things that maybe you like to use it for, right?
So maybe you like to use it for training or maybe you like to use it to play games or whatever.
But to have that – the thought that that would become your eight-hour workday, your 12-hour, you know, consciousness throughout the course of your day, whether it's for work or just to exist, I don't buy it.
Even – I mean – and I'm not even talking about the fact that the current state of hardware is not where it would need to be, right?
It's too bulky.
It's too cumbersome.
It's uncomfortable.
Even the best of them with the foam.
It's all over your face.
Like, it's not a comfortable experience.
But even if you put that aside, it is not an experience that a human being day in and day out over the course of their life, I think, would really want to be engaged in.
And really have that be, no matter how mystical, magical, amazing, fantastic, abstract, surrealistic, whatever it is that draws you into those worlds.
To even – no matter how good all of that experience is and how cool it is, to have that be your conscious experience day in and day out, I don't think that is something that over the long haul becomes appealing or even tolerable.
People, even the most introverted of us, are still social creatures.
We still desire connection, real connection.
And where technologies like AR are designed to enhance that connection, virtual reality is designed to close it off.
I will not place my bets on a technology that is designed to contradict our very nature, not as a consistent day in and day out life experience.
And where we look at those interactions.