Virtual Immersion
“The idea that anyone can visit the ocean or visit space or time travel or shapeshift shows the superpowers you can get from VR.”
The Promise of Immersive Realities
I have seen firsthand the power of immersive reality as a shared experience to spark connection and curiosity. Dr. Woolsey said this after taking 400 people on a Shared, Synchronized Immersive Reality Experiences (SSIRE) in the theater where I led the development, construction, and programming of the World’s Largest Permanent Virtual Reality Theater. Within this theater 400 people could travel to destinations – ranging from tropical coral reefs to the moon – together in real time while a speaker narrated their experience from on stage.
That, in short, is the promise of immersive realities and the technological tools we use to access these new realities. They can create the opportunity for us all to explore and connect in ways never before thought possible. Like the approaching Super Age, immersive reality tools and experiences have the potential to shape the future of how we learn, work, play, and stay connected.
Now this may feel hyperbolic, but think about how new technological platforms have changed our lives in the past 50 years. From telegraph, to radio, to TV, to e-mail and the Internet. Just 25 years ago, what we take for granted and use daily to stay connected to family, friends, and colleagues, would have sounded like science fiction. So whether on Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, or Facetime the daily video call is now firmly a part of our lives and how we stay connected. What will the next 25 years make possible?
No Limits
To reference Dr. Woolsey’s quote above, the ability to visit places or to travel in time through virtual reality is an exciting proposition. Immersive reality has the potential to make our possible destination limitless and infinitely accessible. Think about a destination you have always wanted to travel to. What has kept you from making that trip? For some it may be cost, time, physical abilities, or something else all together.
For me personally it’s the International Space Station. Let’s be clear, I am not going to be visiting the ISS before its splashdown back to earth in the 2030’s.The physical training or billions in personal wealth for side projects now required are just the beginning of reasons why. Immersive reality can be a solution to making those destinations attainable. Allowing us to explore places and experiences otherwise impossible.
But how does immersive reality go beyond novelty to an indispensable tool that is part of our daily lives? The answer, like all technology that came before it, is by adding value to our lives.
Virtual Value
Academic evidence suggests that immersive reality may be able to do that. Paired with the consistent and growing knowledge that access to nature plays an important role in our wellbeing and mental health, immersive reality has the capability to make it possible for patients confined to hospital rooms or in managed care to connect to nature (psychologically and emotionally, if not physically) through these tools and the experiences.
Research by David Markowitz and Jeremy Bailenson published in 2019 in the Oxford Handbook of Virtuality states, “VR can not only reflect a person’s psychological experience while in the virtual world, but also modify attitudes and behaviors in the physical world as well.”
Over my years producing immersive experiences I’ve seen a wide range of reactions to immersive experiences, shared, synchronized, or otherwise, but out of all these interactions one stays with me. In the spring of 2019 we hosted middle school students from DC Public Schools for a talk given by Dr. Woolsey. The talk would be the same, but how the students experienced the immersive content would be very different.
For the first group of 200 students the dive content was played on the theater's screen only. The next day 200 other students heard the same talk and were able to experience the immersive content as a full Shared, Synchronized Immersive Reality Experience. All 200 students experienced the coral reef of Palau in headsets, together at the same time.
The effects of diving in VR together were immediate. The students in the audience were buzzing with excitement, sharing what they saw with each other. The really interesting thing happened when they asked questions of Dr. Woolsey. Students who were able to fully experience the immersive content asked questions about the animals and coral reef ecosystems they experienced. While the students that didn’t see the immersive content, asked questions about Dr. Woolsey’s career and what it's like to study the ocean.
It was apparent in this case that immersive reality, in this shared experience, affected the students behavior even after the experience ended. Shifting student interest to learning more about the reefs they just explored, and not the presenter, which was the goal of the immersive experience. To engage students so they feel they have a direct connection to oceans, even if they have never been to them.
So as we think about how immersive reality might add value in our near future, and be more than novelty, it will be used like this. Where it can serve as a connection point to others and destinations or as shared experiences that are launchpoints for interactions and conversations outside of our devices. It must become a virtual link that bridges physical, psychological and emotional divides.
