Immersive Illness?

  A challenge that concerns me the most is lurking on the horizon, one we don't yet understand the full scope of. As Immersive Education and other forms of personal virtual reality become more realistic and compelling we're going to see "immersive illness" become more common and more difficult to deal with. Although this is an issue today we're somewhat protected by the limitations of today's personal computers and game consoles (they just aren't powerful enough...yet), but in another decade or more it'll be a different story altogether. Nobody knows exactly what impact insanely realistic, media-rich virtual reality will have on society. We're already dealing with early forms of immersive illness, such as addiction, alienation, mental schisms, and more, but today it's not a problem that affects a large percentage of users. We don't see massive problems today for a number of reasons, including rather low-quality virtual environments and limitations on how much time we spend in these environments. But what happens when the visual and audio quality becomes indistinguishable from reality, the technology becomes truly mainstream, and a substantial portion of education takes place in such environments and not in a real classroom? With massive power comes massive problems. Last week I was asked how big this problem will be, and I responded that nobody knows for sure but I'd estimate that the at-risk population can be calculate by adding the percentage of people with addiction problems to the percentage of society that suffer some form of mental illness. That's a big chunk of society. Is it all gloom and doom? Certainly not, but it's a grand challenge we're not even remotely prepared for today. As with other disruptions society will eventually adapt, but I think we're in for a very rough ride.

-Professor Aaron Walsh 

Full interview available at http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/teaching_in_vr_.html



My first thought on Immersive Illness is that the issue is becoming prevalent within our society. This is because back in my country, korea, I have seen so many students or twenties getting addicted to virtual world experience in various ways such as online games, social community, and others. Due to their addiction, they wasted their life of twenties, which led to failures in real society.

Primary reason of Immersive Illness that I believe is that as people continue experiencing virtual world, they start to perceive the fake world as of their reality. When reality and virtual reality become a unity, things can get pretty chaotic. For instance, an online game addicted person would spend the majority of one's life in front of computers instead of investigating for oneself to become more competent in real life society. Sitting down for a long time would also harm one's physical and mental health.

I was personally at least until now able to manage myself away from Immersive Illness. Although I frequently use Facebook and other online sources for academic purposes, I never have confused virtual world as real ones. Surrounding environment is very critical in making those Immersive Illness along with the people around. It is important to improve those endangered environments that are exposed to potential Immersive Illness especially for younger people.