Now we hear about new technologies which can
change our lives, make them better. Thanks to smartphones, the internet and many other things, we can speak
to each other over distance, travel, heal people... That's why we can't imagine
the current life without them.
An increasing number of people live more in a
virtual world than in the real one. We use Facebook all the time, prefer to
talk to friends via Messenger, WhatsApp instead of meeting them face to face.
Oculus is the next step in making the virtual world more pleasant to the point
it covers up the border between the reality and the virtuality. Now, we can buy
these glasses and move into the game world at our homes, wherever and whenever
we want.
Some people will be very satisfied with this
solution because finally impressions will be stronger, horrors - really scary,
views - really thrilling. Nevertheless, I think there is a big danger that it
may get out of hand and this technology can be used to control our minds.
Maybe the story which I write below sounds like
from a fantasy book, but let’s imagine that some dictator would like to have
obedient citizens. He could put the glasses on newborns. They would grow up in
belief that it’s reality, the life created by one person. Is there an easier
way to control a society?
Another example, now we travel to different
places, visit them, admire the most beautiful corners of the earth, because we
want to see them. What if we were able
to do this only by wearing these glasses? The airlines, railway undertakings
would go out of business.
On the other hand, using glasses to distract
patients in hospitals during painful injections and surgeries could bring
positive results.
I think that our desire to involve more and more
technology into our lives will make them poorer. The most beautiful is the real
world, maybe sometimes imperfect, but still true.
Have you ever used Oculus or Gear VR? What were
your feelings after using it?
In your opinion, is this invention a step to
better life or on the contrary, does it lock us in a small virtual world?
Sources:
Comments
For most part I'm a person in support of every kind of technological advancement even if it's dangerous because I belive that long term benefits will always outweight the risks. People are bale to adapt and protect themselves. In history of our develompents one problem always changes to another one (and the new one focuses our attention) but on the avaerage it's always change for the better.
In my opinion this is an opportunity to entertain and have a lot of fun. But like most of technologies it may be addictive. Of course there will be people who will be locked in their worlds and will be using it almost all the time like now they can play video games all the time. But for sure the most of people will just have fun. I don't think that it will cause the entire transport out of business, because still using VR you can't go swimming to the sea or even pool, you can't smell the flowers or you can't feel rain on your skin and in my opinion there will always be people who won't resign of this.
In my opinion, as any other technology, it has pros and cons. Many areas, such as medical operations, movies or gaming might have big benefits from using VR. I think, that we are far from using it as "dictators" tool, however, in today's world, everything is possible.
It's an interesting issue, what's real and what's not? If the same feelings will be achieved in VR then what's real if it feels the same, tastes the same etc.?
Last week I was a mentor on VR hackathon ( a competition where you should create an app or a game in 24h). 3 winners of the competition were the educational apps and games. The winner was an app which helped you to learn foreign languages with a help of 360 videos. I believe that we can educate next generations more efficiently with using of VR.
But of course, as any other tool, VR might be used for different purposes by good and bad people.
I think this inventions are really useful if we will use them in the right way. Medicine, science, researches sometimes are really in need of some tools like VR.
Among my favs was the "falling" of the skyscraper(I was really scared, no jokes!) and a kind of Beksinsky exhibition, that was so cool, that I was telling about it to all my friends during the week.
I am not sure, that I need that stuff at home, but it was definitely worth trying.
Perhaps in the future VR devices will be commonly used, with them no longer covering our whole faces and being actually useful.