Almost everybody around is gung-ho about Virtual Reality (VR) nowadays, its thrill and the potential it holds, but VR can also have a bad effect on your health.
Anything that needs to be worn around your eyes for an immersive experience (VR or even 3D), does provide a better experience, but there are many who really don’t feel comfortable wearing such devices.
In fact, there are some who can hardly bear it for a minute or so and their head stars spinning. There are many who feel either nauseated or uncomfortable after toying around in VR, wearing the headset.
Potential Health Hazards
Here are some of the potential symptoms that users may experience after wearing a VR headset (as per Oculus’ risk and safety guide).
- Involuntary movements
- Altered, blurred, or double vision or other visual abnormalities
- Dizziness
- Disorientation
- Impaired balance
- Impaired hand-eye coordination
- Excessive sweating
- Increased salivation
- Nausea
- Lightheadedness
- Discomfort or pain in the head or eyes
- Drowsiness
- Fatigue
- Seizures
- Loss of awareness
- Eye strain
- Eye or muscle twitching
A long list I would say, and that is one of the reasons that VR is finding it hard to penetrate among the masses.
Desensitization
In India, you will hear of several cases where some incident (accident or act of violence) happens but passers-by chose not get involved and help the victims.
Desensitization is a similar phenomenon where a person is no longer influenced by extreme acts of conduct, for example, violence and neglects to show empathy or sympathy as a result. This has been seen with gamers, particularly the individuals who play first person shooters or pretending games which involve a high degree of immersion.
So prolonged use of VR may give rise to Desensitization.
Final Thoughts
There’s no doubt VR has huge potential, but it will need to tackle this hurdle (seems like an uphill battle as of now) in order to see glorious days ahead.
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