Benefits of Virtual Reality in Society
February 17, 2024 - Natalie Waters
What is Virtual Reality?
The technological advances and increase in accessibility to this technology makes it a vast resource with almost limitless opportunities. Virtual Reality is a technology that is not only great for entertainment purposes, but is a great asset to many different aspects of improvement in our lives. VR is a virtual environment in a full 360 degree view that can be, ideally, seamlessly interacted with, most often through the use of a headset that completely covers the eyes and handheld controllers.
VR in the medical field: Mental Health
The benefits of using VR as a clinical tool in mental health include aspects such as the ability to experience settings in a safe and controlled environment, and personalization of the experience for each individual’s needs. Studies show that using immersive VR settings elicits similar physiological responses as real-life scenarios. For example, when a study recorded the emotional reaction to a real-life experience, a VR experience, and a photograph of the experience, the real-life and VR scenarios engaged similar emotional responses. VR also allows patients to interact with their environment, rather than just watching a video of the experience, making it a more immersive and convincing scenario.
Increased empathy in healthcare professionals
Virtual Reality allows doctors to put themselves in the shoes of their patient’s experience, or in this case, their eyes and ears. Implementing VR in training tactics has helped to increase empathy between doctors and patients. By using VR, doctors can experience for themselves real-time what their patient is experiencing. Diseases that cause specific symptoms and conditions, such as high frequency hearing loss, macular degeneration, Alzheimer’s, and dementia, can be simulated in an audio and visual VR experience. Doctors now have the ability to not just report on what they observe or what their patients tell them, they can experience for themselves the symptoms their patients experience to better understand and empathize with their conditions.
Another training tactic being used is simulating difficult conversations doctors have with their patients. Practicing conversations like end-of-life care or notifying family about a terminal illness in a virtually simulated experience can make the real-life delivery of news seem more considerate and less distressing after having the simulated practice.
Photo credit - intive.com
Your new physical therapist
Physical and occupational therapy has been shown to be increasingly effective with the use of VR in some studies. VR allows patients to act in scenes of everyday life that may be difficult to them, due to their injury, such as dishwashing or grocery shopping. It also provides a more fun environment with games to play for physical therapy. In one example, a patient who had a shoulder injury could play a game of popping balloons, and in the background of the game she could see where her range of motion should be.
Photo credit - nytimes.com
One thing patients have had difficulty with in the past is going home after meeting with a physical therapist and forgetting exactly how to do an exercise. With VR, you can see at home, in real time, the moves and exercises you are supposed to do, and replicate them as you follow along. Studies have shown that implementation of VR in physical and occupational therapy have resulted in a higher success rate of recovery, and in patients being more proactive and consistent with their therapy.
Traveling the world in your home
Virtual Reality can be a great resource in being able to virtually visit historical places without having to pay the expenses of traveling to that place. The Château de Versailles is a hugely popular tourist attraction and a renowned historical building. Traveling here is not something most people would be able to afford.
The ability to visit this place and others like it gives people all over the opportunity to experience its beauty in a virtual, three-dimensional, and accurately represented environment through the use of photogrammetry. This virtual environment also offers a unique experience of avoiding the massive crowds that popular tourist spots like this can attract. You can experience an accurate representation of the building in a much more personal, non-crowded, and emotionally authentic space.
Photo credit - realite-virtuelle.com
Virtual teaching opportunities
Virtual Reality opens new doorways and possibilities to enhance the teaching and analyzing of history. The lower cost VR headsets accompanied with Google’s Expeditions program allows teachers to take their students on virtual field trips, without leaving the classroom. This opens up new opportunities for learning about and virtually experiencing many more places, and even points in time, than would be allowed with a regular field trip.
Photo credit - ecampusontario
The ability to recreate periods in time and immerse yourself in this historical VR time period is a much more effective way of learning compared to learning from readings, pictures, or videos. Google has also created a way to travel back in time with their records of 360 degree views in Google Earth. By stitching these images together, entire worlds can be recreated from different years in the past, and re-lived to be analyzed by scholars from a new and more immersive point of view.
Photo credit - ecampusontario
3D Design with Virtual Reality
Using VR for prototyping is a very effective way to get a full 3D feel for what something will look like before it is actually produced. Creating things in a 3D environment can be enhanced by this hands-on user experience, so to speak. It is one thing to create 3D objects that you can see and move around on your computer screen. It becomes a whole other ballgame when you can be immersed in the project, see your design right in front of you, and move all around it in a complete 360 degree view. Using VR for prototyping gives you a better visual and spatial feel for what the finished and manufactured product will look like in the end.
Photo credit - medium.com
VR in architectural design
Architects have begun to use VR for their designs from blueprints all the way to 3D models. Almost half of the major architecture companies across the globe have implemented this technology in their design process. VR benefits these companies by providing a more seamless interaction between designer and client, and the ability to directly interact with and show clients the designs. VR also aids with the ease of collaboration between designers from anywhere in the world, and by removing any possible miscommunication between varying platform and technological differences.
Photo credit - parametric-architecture.com
Real Estate: virtual home tours
The real estate industry has started using VR as a more efficient way to realistically showcase homes, without the interested buyer having to physically be in the home. Rather than simply having to look at pictures or videos, VR allows people to get a real feel for the inside and outside of a home by virtually walking through the space. Homes can also be virtually staged to save costs of purchasing furniture to show a home.
Photo credit - ediiie.com
VR also helps in the overall design process, with the ability to create 3D models of entire properties and even neighborhoods. This is especially useful when dealing with sales of under-construction buildings. With the property still under construction, there is no real finished piece to see. By implementing VR, interested parties can still get an accurate representation and feel for what the finished space will look like.
Photo credit - ediiie.com
Ever-evolving VR
Implementing Virtual reality into various aspects of society can have noticeable improvements to those areas of use. Not only does it benefit workers in fields such as medical, historical, or design, it also benefits the patients, students, and clients of their respective fields. Streamlining experiences with increased empathy in an immersive world opens opportunities for learning, connection, and creation that were not so accessible before. The captivating virtual world allows users to assimilate to what they are seeing and hearing in a way that simulates real life experiences. As this technology becomes more and more accessible to people all over the globe, the benefits of using VR have continued to increase as well. New ideas for putting VR into action will continue to spur as more people see the benefits of how VR is being put to use.
Sources
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Tugend, Alina. “Meet Virtual Reality, Your New Physical Therapist.” NY Times, 21 Apr. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/health/virtual-reality-therapy.html.
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Bastien, L. “Google has recreated the Palace of Versailles in virtual reality.” Realite-Virtuelle.com, 2020, https://www.realite-virtuelle.com/google-versailles-vr/.
Kheraj, Sean. “The Presence of the Past: The Posibilities of Virtual Reality for History.” Beyond the Lecture: Innovations in Teaching Canadian History, 2019, https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/beyondlecture/chapter/the-presence-of-the-past-the-possibilities-of-virtual-reality-for-history/.
Uppunda, Sudarshan. “Virtual Reality, And How Are Architects Using It In Design?” Parametric Architecture, 17 Jun. 2022, https://parametric-architecture.com/virtual-reality-and-how-are-architects-using-it-in-design/.
“Virtual Reality Real Estate: How VR is Being Used in Real Estate.” Ediiie, 2024, https://www.ediiie.com/blog/how-vr-used-in-real-estate/.
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