As everybody acknowledges, over the last decade the internet became fully integrated in everybody’s lives. People can’t live without their phones anymore, because it connects them with the internet. They need to check Facebook, Instagram or might even score a date on Tinder. The internet became the reality of everybody. People connect online instead of offline and people buy stuff online instead of going to physical stores. Even more, code training applications are now being developed for little kids instead of playing with their little puzzle boxes and their friends. Humans these days are raised to profile themselves online instead of offline, and will become less able to interact with other people offline. When was the last time you felt more safe behind your laptop or your phone than in real life?
I can barely go a day without Facebook or without my daily laughs at Dumpert. But if the internet changes the behaviour of people that big compared to twenty years ago, virtual reality might just be the next internet, because of the endless possibilities it offers for almost any kind of branch. Some examples, traumas could be more effectively treated, the gaming industry gets into a whole other dimensions and you are able to see how these sunglasses just look on your face when shopping online. The hard part about virtual reality now is that you have to put on the big Oculus on your face, which makes it not yet applicable to everyday life. Once it will be reduced to the size of normal glasses this might change.
As soon as this is accomplished, virtual reality can be integrated into everyday life. Then one more little step needs to be taken, to shake up the whole world again. That little step where people are able to share their own reality through virtual reality. It will give Facebook, Instagram and Tinder a whole new idea, as you are able experience what other people have been up to instead of just seeing it by plain pictures or videos. You are able to be in a physical store, try on some clothes and get the opinion of your friends, or you are able to join Max Verstappen in his Formula 1 race.
It won’t be only a game changer for regular consumers. It will be a game changer for organizations as well. As soon as virtual reality gets integrated into everyday life, by a tangible tool like a phone, organizations will have a new means of measuring behaviour of consumers. One can only imagine the information an organization will be able to obtain from this.
How will you react when somebody else’s reality becomes your reality? Or how will you act when you are able to act in any random reality? In which reality would you choose to be? When virtual reality becomes your reality there’s no saying what will happen. But looking at all the endless possibilities virtual reality has to offer one thing becomes clear. There is a significant chance that this will change our way of doing things once again.
Hi Dylan,
The introduction of your article touches one of the most important (paradigm) shifts of the modern area. People, luckily not all of them, cannot live without their phone and the internet anymore. Facebook, Whattsapp, and other online social media platforms are competing with ‘real life social interaction’. The fact that code training applications are being developed for children, which takes over the role of playing with their little puzzle boxes and their friends, can be seen as a change with should be dealt with caution.
I agree with you on the fact that, the developments of virtural reality can indeed again shape the way humans will interact with each other. Implementing virtual reality in real life will bring enourmous new developments and changes in our day-to-day lifes, but referring back to your introductionary question: I do think we have to keep in mind to ‘go offline’ from time to time. Next to the cool aspects of joining Max Verstappen in his next Formula 1 race or showing live updates to your friends via VirtualRealityFacebook, I do believe it is important for us to realise that humans are (off-line) social beings.
It will be interesting to see and experience on how virtual reality will shape our future. For our personal day-to-day lives, to businesses, VR with all its possibilities can have (and will have) an enormous impact on our society.
However, I do think it is important to realise to ‘go offline’ once awhile..