October 07, 2024
Virtual reality (VR) is like visiting a foreign country: You get a completely new way of looking at things you were previously familiar with, but there's nothing quite like experiencing everything firsthand when it actually happens right in front of you. It doesn't matter if it's a full-blown VR environment such as
Virtual Reality is quickly becoming more popular every year, especially among children. Although it has been used as an educational tool for over 40 years now, only recently did VR enter the mainstream culture. A growing number of companies and individuals are offering their own versions, each featuring different strengths depending upon its purpose (games vs learning).
However, like any new technology, there have been issues introduced as well: namely privacy concerns surrounding people being able to see someone else's personal space in real-time via cameras mounted on headsets/headsets. It turns out that VR could also pose significant physical health risks if taken too far specifically dizziness, nausea, and headaches - due to increased blood flow required by moving eyes & head; but these are usually easily treatable if discovered early enough.
I was reading about how VR technology is used today to treat different kinds of mental health disorders (1) such as anxiety-related conditions and phobias. It seems obvious when one sees VR demos like the ones listed above you get to experience things that normally would only happen in real life: flying through a landscape without getting motion sick, seeing an erupting volcano in full 3D detail, etc... But there's another side of the coin- these same "virtual" experiences also expose users to new information and knowledge that could change their lives forever.
As a neurosurgeon who has been practicing his trade since 2005, Dr. Mark Sievers' work in the field of psychiatry has helped him identify symptoms associated with several psychiatric disorders, including ADHD, Tourette syndrome, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, alcohol addiction;...and more recently Virtual Reality Therapy to help overcome social fears and other phobia disorders. With research showing that using VR in therapy provides faster results than traditional therapies, Dr.Sieves believes that virtual environments will become part of everyone's daily routine one day soon.
