VR Could Help Cure Apathy Caused By Technology, Making Better People

With the ceaseless march of technological advancements, empathy and humanity have also taken a hit. Some of the factors contributing to people becoming less able to relate to one another are the veil of anonymity online and the disconnection that fake relationships have brought on via social media. Now, a new kind of technology in virtual reality is being used in the hopes of bringing back or even improving the humanity of users.

The numerous applications of VR technology have allowed it to thrive in several industries, including medicine and education. Now, it’s about to enter the field involved in training people to have more empathy towards others, NBC News reports.

The director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, Jeremy Bailenson wrote an email to the news network explaining the concept of using VR as a tool for teacher people how to become more human. It basically involves putting said users in the shoes of someone else and taking them through certain scenarios that they would not have had to go through in their normal lives.

"We have spent the past fifteen years designing experiments to test the efficacy of VR to teach empathy,” the email reads. “Across dozens of studies, a pattern emerges in that VR tends to be a more effective tool than other media and role-playing techniques."

This isn’t surprising since using VR isn’t like watching scenes progress on a flat screen where the viewer can easily feel disconnected from the events. While wearing the VR headset and seeing through the lenses, the user feels as if they are the ones in that situation regardless of how aware they are of the virtual experience.

One clear example involves an experiment where users took on the avatar of a coral that is slowly being corroded by the acidification of sea water. By the end of the experiment, the VR users were more likely to see ocean acidification as a threat as opposed to those who only viewed the events through a flat screen, Futurism reports.