Diving Into the Future: The Benefits of VR
Tags: virtualreality, vr
Published: 2022-07-26 13:14:22

Over the last one hundred years, humanity has undergone an incredible amount of change in such a short amount of time. With the way that technology continues to improve, it would not be a surprise to see unthinkable devices created in the next one hundred years. While all of this incredible innovation is occurring, there are still many problems that have not been addressed properly. From the pandemic that affected the entire world to conflict in general, life is in no way perfect even with all of this new technology. This can be changed, however, with the increased usage of a recently created technology that has infinite potential; virtual reality. [Virtual reality](https://www.statista.com/topics/2532/virtual-reality-vr/) has the ability to expand possibilities regarding education, increase empathy between groups, and make life, in general, safer for more people. 

Education is arguably one of the fundamental foundations of society. Without proper education, society would crumble, with future doctors, teachers, and more members of key jobs never achieving their potential and being able to help mankind. Virtual reality has the ability to revolutionize education in general, creating opportunities for students that would be unthinkable just 30 years ago. With virtual reality, students are now able to truly go back in time to experience Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, explore what it would be like to be a part of a party in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and participate in a life-saving surgery of a hospital patient. This last example, in particular, provides one of the premier benefits of virtual reality in healthcare. Tasks in a hospital can be sources of great stress, and in order to avoid mistakes that could result in the death of a patient, something such as a fake model is used in place of a real person in order to practice the necessary procedure for the specific task that a student is trying to accomplish. With virtual reality, however, students are able to understand what it is like to be in this unique atmosphere during a situation where they have the ability to save an individual’s life. The possibilities with this are endless, and they allow for future members of any profession to be much stronger at what they do, whether they be police officers who have practiced under tense situations or doctors who have completed a difficult surgery, virtual reality makes it possible to increase the abilities of our workforce, allowing for increased innovation and a better life for mankind. In addition to enhancing education, virtual reality also allows for virtual education to be much more rewarding and removes many of its fundamental problems. With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual learning was increasing nationally, and while virtual learning is most definitely better than no learning, it brought about many problems as well. According to an [article](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2021/08/13/how-does-virtual-learning-impact-students-in-higher-education/) by research group The Brookings Institution, virtually all studies that were looked into “found that online instruction resulted in lower student performance relative to in-person instruction”. Much of this decrease in performance, grades, and even graduation rate stems from the lack of human interaction caused by virtual school, with many complaining about less communication and feedback from teachers along with a general feeling of social isolation without the company of students in the classroom. These problems no longer exist, however, through the usage of virtual reality. With virtual reality, students are able to interact almost normally, as if they were in the classroom as they usually are, and are able to have much more of a standard relationship with teachers, feeling the sense of security of being in a classroom. With the pandemic still not being truly over, virtual reality provides a solution to the continuation of education throughout trying times. 

Along with the improvement of education, the usage of virtual reality provides a method to increase empathy amongst others. In a world of such diversity, it is very important for people to understand each other, as many of the worst events in human history were caused by a lack of empathy. From genocides to wars in general, the inability to understand one another has been one of the main problems that mankind has suffered from since its beginning, with an increase in empathy making the possibility of world peace closer to reality. This can be seen through the use of virtual reality to show the hardships of people with a certain medical condition, such as dementia, or even a historical event, such as a wartime experience. Seeing the horrors of war and feeling as if you are truly there can cause people to completely change their idealized vision of war, and realize how much pain people are forced to go through as a result of it. With virtual reality, people have a way to ingrain in themselves that everyone is not the same, and this uniqueness is something that will never change and has to be accepted. Thanks to virtual reality, there is a much more realistic way for people to put themselves in the shoes of others who are treated unkindly, and realize how much pain is being caused for them, resulting overall in a better worldly atmosphere. With this technology, conflict, in general, can be decreased immensely over time and can result in a unified effort to advance society. 

Finally, it is obvious that death is a natural part of life on Earth. While it is impossible to avoid death, there are many cases where people die unnatural deaths which could have been avoided if they had been more careful. As explained in the aforementioned section on its effects on empathy, virtual reality has the ability to decrease conflict, and therefore decrease early deaths. In addition to this, however, virtual reality provides alternatives to dangerous activities that people are interested in participating in. From base jumping to shark diving, virtual reality provides the opportunity to participate in these extremely dangerous activities without the aspect of potentially getting hurt, with these activities having relatively high rates of death and injury that are easily avoidable through the use of virtual reality. Although some may say it is nowhere near the same thing to do these activities using virtual reality, the level of technology we now have makes it possible to feel like one is truly doing these activities, and not in the safety of their own homes, giving almost no reason for these dangerous activities to continue when virtual reality can provide the same level of enjoyment. In addition to removing the dangerous elements of certain activities, virtual reality has the potential to save even more lives as explained earlier with the better training of doctors and firefighters as they learn how to save lives under extreme conditions, making them much better under this pressure when they have to save real lives. With the many elements of life that are made safer through the usage of virtual reality, it is clear that this technology needs to be expanded throughout the world and made more accessible. 

Although it may seem uncommon, VR development has infinite possibilities in helping improve the world as it is today. With virtual reality, we have a chance to truly change the direction humanity is going in over the next one hundred years for the better, and solve many of the existing problems we have in today’s society.