In the article "Virtual Reality Panic", Adi Robertson outlines some of the main criticisms of Virtual Reality when it first entered the public's consciousness in the late 1980s and 1990s. During this period, the media fueled by counterculture icons like Timothy Leary, drew comparisons between virtual reality and LSD. These exaggerations of an "electronic LSD" lead people to believe that VR was a realistic simulation of everyday life. Misinformation around to VR lead to debates about VR addiction, the end of "real world" sex, and what "presence" really means. This portrayal of VR as a sensual and sinister all encompassing device lead to the concerns there would be an extreme backlash by the public. In the end these fears never materialized, it was the practical concerns (lag, poor resolution, motion sickness, etc) that held back consumer VR. Since the 1980s VR has changed enormously, however these mass cultural debates surrounding the technology has not.
With the emergence of any new media form comes some backlash from the media and the public. What is important about Robertson's article is that she directly compares the criticism of VR in the 1980s to the criticisms of today showing little difference between the two. This same fears and concerns were expressed during the emergence of the radio, television, computers, and the internet. Instead of repeating these same debates, we should use history to guide our discussions and to learn from the problems our predecessors had to grapple with.
In the article "Virtual Reality Panic", Adi Robertson outlines some of the main criticisms of Virtual Reality when it first entered the public's consciousness in the late 1980s and 1990s. During this period, the media fueled by counterculture icons like Timothy Leary, drew comparisons between virtual reality and LSD. These exaggerations of an "electronic LSD" lead people to believe that VR was a realistic simulation of everyday life. Misinformation around to VR lead to debates about VR addiction, the end of "real world" sex, and what "presence" really means. This portrayal of VR as a sensual and sinister all encompassing device lead to the concerns there would be an extreme backlash by the public. In the end these fears never materialized, it was the practical concerns (lag, poor resolution, motion sickness, etc) that held back consumer VR. Since the 1980s VR has changed enormously, however these mass cultural debates surrounding the technology has not.
With the emergence of any new media form comes some backlash from the media and the public. What is important about Robertson's article is that she directly compares the criticism of VR in the 1980s to the criticisms of today showing little difference between the two. This same fears and concerns were expressed during the emergence of the radio, television, computers, and the internet. Instead of repeating these same debates, we should use history to guide our discussions and to learn from the problems our predecessors had to grapple with.