Immersive Illness? - Alex Lau

"A challenge that concerns me the most is lurking on the horizon, one we don't yet understand the full scope of. As Immersive Education and other forms of personal virtual reality become more realistic and compelling we're going to see "immersive illness" become more common and more difficult to deal with. Although this is an issue today we're somewhat protected by the limitations of today's personal computers and game consoles (they just aren't powerful enough...yet), but in another decade or more it'll be a different story altogether. Nobody knows exactly what impact insanely realistic, media-rich virtual reality will have on society. We're already dealing with early forms of immersive illness, such as addiction, alienation, mental schisms, and more, but today it's not a problem that affects a large percentage of users. We don't see massive problems today for a number of reasons, including rather low-quality virtual environments and limitations on how much time we spend in these environments. But what happens when the visual and audio quality becomes indistinguishable from reality, the technology becomes truly mainstream, and a substantial portion of education takes place in such environments and not in a real classroom? With massive power comes massive problems. Last week I was asked how big this problem will be, and I responded that nobody knows for sure but I'd estimate that the at-risk population can be calculate by adding the percentage of people with addiction problems to the percentage of society that suffer some form of mental illness. That's a big chunk of society. Is it all gloom and doom? Certainly not, but it's a grand challenge we're not even remotely prepared for today. As with other disruptions society will eventually adapt, but I think we're in for a very rough ride." ~ Professor Aaron Walsh from the itnerview "Virtual reality and higher education: Another perspective" at http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/teaching_in_vr_.html


 I personally think Immersive Illness is a problem already. People have made some of the worst mistakes because of their addiction to the internet. Careless teenage daughters use their parents credit card because they are obsessed with online shopping. Gaming teens have dropped out of school and had to start from the ground up because they were addicted to World of Warcraft. A couple years ago, South Korea announced an army bootcamp for teens addicted to Starcraft to go to because the addiction was simply too pronounced. A couple in China have even sold their children just to transfer that money into in-game currency, fueling their addiction while they were living in squalor. People have even died from staying in a gaming cafe for so many hours, over 36 for this one guy until he just fell over and died on the spot. Yes, these are very singular, way too peculiar incidents. But it is only going to get worse as time and technology goes on. In the article, Professor Walsh said that "we're not even remotely prepared for today." Well, to be honest, I really have to agree.

     And to add on, take a look inside a Starbucks, or the T, or just hang out with some friends. Now go ahead and count how many people are literally stuck in their phones, their necks curved at their phones at an exact 60 degree angle. I hang out with my friends and family quite often, weekly even. And I always see my little cousins just sucked into their phones or their Nintendo DS, along with my friend, who are sitting next to each other, but not even talking! They are literally texting each other as they are sitting next to each other. It was not a joke, they decided that they were "too lazy" to talk so they texted instead. Barely anyone wants to talk anymore, and face to face contact is looking to be a thing of the past.