Five Ways Virtual Reality Will Change The World

Virtual reality isn't just for gaming - it's a technology that can make a real difference in our collective futures. Here’s how VR will change our world.

Visiting Places

Think how compulsive it can be to just look around the world on Google Maps. Then think of how much more immersive it would be to do the same through your own eyes... sort of.

VR would allow remote tours of museums for people unable to get to the building, and would let estate agents give potential buyers a look around a property without them having to leave the comfort of their own home.

Gaming

The obvious use for virtual reality - and the most-demonstrated example - is gaming. Gamers want something visceral. When you're riding a roller-coaster and you go down a hill, your stomach drops out: even though you know it's not real, your body reacts as if it's there.

Virtual reality has a huge potential to create social experiences in gaming – imagine one person is in the VR headset; only he or she can see the virtualized elements. Social situations of sharing information and collaborating with different skills is nothing new.

Take astronauts for example: The idea is that the man or woman who gets to go up and be in space has to be pretty good at everything and have a specialization. If they go out onto a spacewalk, or they’re doing a particular mission, then the people who are radioing instructions to them and are just as an important part of the team.

Education

One of the most overlooked virtual reality niches is training and simulations. If you have to train somebody on a very expensive piece of machinery, you want to do it in a simulator.

With virtual and augmented reality learning technology, students and trainees learn through showing rather than telling. This enables learners to accelerate the traditional learning process and creates a competitive advantage to its users.

One recent example was a doctor [who] practiced surgery on a tiny baby's heart. He took scans of the heart, uploaded them to the computer and toured it with this little virtual reality headset, was able to plan out his surgery ahead of time, and saved the baby.

Surgery

It's better and safer for surgeons in training to perfect their techniques on things other than real humans, but it would also be better for trainee surgeons to practice on things that aren't just plastic models or people who have left their bodies to medical science.

As such, a fully-interactive, accurately modeled specimen, suffering from a selection of ailments which need surgery to be carried out through a VR interface, would make for a lot of better-trained, better-performing surgeons - something that's better for all of us.

Improving Quality of Life

There are many people out there who, for whatever reason, aren't capable of living a normal life. They deserve to be able to live, to explore, and to experience the wonder of the world (and beyond).

VR could provide the disabled or those otherwise unable to do 'normal' things with an outlet - a way to experience that which able-bodied persons take for granted. And that would be a brilliant thing.

If you made it this far, I want to personally thank you for reading this post. I truly appreciate it! It means the world to me. If there is anything I can do for you to return the favor, please leave a comment below. Thank you again :)