The Light and Dark Sides of VR

Author/Creator

Sebastian Oberdörfer, Domna Banakou and Ayush Bhargava

Quick Summary

Virtual Reality (VR) has diverse applications in entertainment, education, therapy, and research, enhancing communication and wellbeing. However, it also poses risks from overuse and unethical design, potentially leading to negative effects, especially in vulnerable users. Identifying these risks and establishing safety guidelines is crucial as VR becomes more integrated into daily life.

Abstract

The application of Virtual Reality (VR) is varied, ranging from entertainment, education, and training to therapy, workflow optimization, and scientific research. Over the past decade, there has been extensive work demonstrating how VR can enhance our lives and improve our wellbeing. VR has positively impacted various fields, for example, by facilitating distant communication, alleviating loneliness, providing relaxation support, and improving remote learning. However, as with any innovative technology, there may be unforeseen downsides to VR that may arise from overuse, poorly developed experiences, or unethical purposes. As a result, some positive use cases may have long-lasting negative effects, while use cases originally intended as negative may help users overcome anxiety or treat disorders.

For example, VR can allow users to isolate themselves in horror games, which may be engaging but could negatively impact children, or habituate users to gambling with real money in environments where all external stimuli are heavily altered or reduced. With VR increasingly integrated into our daily lives through virtual workplaces, virtual social gatherings, and the Metaverse, it is critical to identify potential risks and establish design guidelines to ensure user safety.

This Research Topic serves as a first step in identifying opportunities, potential risks, and new research directions.

The Light and Dark Sides of Virtual Reality

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) allows users to experience and feel present in all kinds of virtual environments (VEs). These VEs can simulate real-world situations or create purely artificial environments full of spectacular places and adventures. Today, this capability of VR is employed in a wide range of use-cases. We can acquire new knowledge and train new skills in realistic situations, treat anxieties by providing a particular stimulus in a controlled and safe way, participate in events of the past like rock concerts, relax in beautiful environments, and experience adventures in games.<br/><br/>However, being immersed in a particular VE might become problematic when the design of the VE is based on either negative intentions or rather good ones but with unexpected side-effects. In addition, the experience of presence and a generally higher visual angle on a particular stimulus in comparison to a normal computer screen might lead to an increased emotional response to audiovisual stimuli. This can make intentional negative aspects more effective. For instance, virtual gambling games and casinos intend to evoke erroneous beliefs in players and to influence their behavior. Research already demonstrated that playing a slot machine in VR causes a higher risk potential in comparison to a desktop version and generally evokes an urge to gamble similar to real slot machines in casinos. Also, the direct presentation of stimuli could lead to severe effects when inducing negative ...