Just the usual out of touch fear mongering the VR community has been getting for years. Now that Apple has joined the party, I expect a lot more of it in the future, unfortunately.
Has this guy even used social VR before? I don’t want to entirely dismiss his points out of hand, but what he’s describing is so unlike my experience with VRChat that I don’t really know how to even respond meaningfully. Come back after having a heart-to-heart with a 12 foot tall gay dragon furry dude, then we’ll talk, otherwise this is just tilting at windmills
Likewise online video made it possible for him to attend college despite an ongoing pandemic, and instead of being thankful for that opportunity, he blames Zoom for making him lonely? Not the pandemic? It makes no sense
Is this really any different than pc gaming? Am I not really hanging out with my brother and friends as we coop our way through Baldur’s Gate? It’s “not real” and we are not face to face. VR Chat feels even more real. Real enough to trigger my social anxiety and prevent me from having any fun or joining in. It’s too much like face to face contact. (This is a personal problem but it makes me question this guy’s take on how fake that kind of socializing is.)
I really, truly, do not believe the world is in danger of people in general preferring to strap these devices to their face over physically hanging out. The tech is cool but it never really took off. The reason noone is talking about this problem, Hugh, is that it’s not really a concern.
Whatever happened to second life. VR keeps becoming the thing once every decade or two. Just not something I care about. Might be useful for gaming or certain specialized activities of course.
VRchat is similar to second life in terms of what it provides to the player, and is very popular with VR users. Second life is still around but it looks like puke and has an impenetrable culture.
Is VR really so ubiquitous to warrant these concerns? In my opinion most of the warnings about how this technology encourages “escaping reality” apply more to things that have had an established place in society for decades, namely phones, social media and online gaming. I have two kids and a VR headset is the least of my concerns, but they could be sucked in to the non-reality of a personal phone in two seconds if I allow it.
Yeah VR is a good thing to point at as a message for “this is where we are heading and it will make the problem worse” but the current problems stem from the broad internet (the big apps) taking away real socialization time without giving much in return, and also cultural identity problems that are vast and complex.
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