Digital communication lacks a human side and Virtual Reality could change that




Virtual Reality (VR) immerses users in a way no other digital technology does. Through various clever tricks explained here, the technology successfully creates the illusion of reality. If done well, users of VR end up forgetting that they are just sitting on their sofa wearing a bulky headset. Their brain and perception get completely immersed in the virtual world that is being presented to them.

The beauty of VR is that it has the potential to bridge the gaps introduced by the the traditional forms of online communication. A bunch of people, thousands of kilometers away from each other, could meet up in a virtual space, looking into each other’s eyes in a setting that makes them feel as if they’d actually be in the same room. Would it suddenly become much harder to outright call someone a dumb idiot than in a tweet or Facebook comment discussion? Possibly yes.

In a recent interview, Palmer Luckey, the CEO and founder of Facebook-owned VR company Oculus VR, explained what he thinks makes VR special when it comes to digital communication:

“I think that virtual reality is the first technology in a long time that makes digital communication a lot more human. I’m not necessarily talking virtual reality as it exists today, where we have fairly limited avatars and voice chat. I’m talking about a few years down the line as virtual reality progresses to its natural conclusion. Eventually we’re going to be able to — if not perfectly — do a really good job of simulating people actually being together in the same space. To me, that’s going to connect people a lot more than isolate people. It’s just going to connect them in a different way.”

As Luckey points out, the described scenario is still a few years in the future. Also, one still should be a bit sceptical about whether the current VR hype really will change digital as fundamental as it is often being advertised by those involved in the VR business. However, the possibility is there and it is real.

Once VR has proven to be able to fulfill its lofty promises, there will be large incentives for online platforms to move away from today’s text-centric one-to-many communication towards a VR-based one. The companies will create VR spaces for individuals to interact and discuss – spaces that will feel more like real life places than like a random, slightly meaningless discussion on Facebook. Even though users might initially be hesitant, they’ll eventually fall for it. Especially if the online giants decide to heavily push VR. At one point, the idea of entering your quick, impulsive rant into a tiny text-field on your smartphone in order for various strangers to marvel at any time in the future might seem totally anachronistic.

People make use of the digital tools that are given to them. If widespread hate speech indeed should turn out to be a phenomenon that flourishes in the text-centric public areas of today’s Internet, one way (and maybe the best) to tackle this challenge is to quickly move on to a technology which takes better into account the patterns and flaws of human communication.


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