As Virtual Reality steadily grows in popularity, researchers expect its market to reach no less than $25 billion by 2022, confirming that we will be seeing more of it every year. So far, VR has slowly gotten hold of numerous professional fields which are beginning to implement VR software and headsets in ways that can lessen their companies’ needs while also generating positive impact among the subjects. Headsets for PC and technology itself doesn’t have to be expensive and most companies can afford it.
Nevertheless, to say that all is great about Virtual Reality would be to disclose only half of the truth as several studies have revealed, and while many are working hard to develop projects that can help people improve their health through its use, others are wondering exactly the opposite and have come to different conclusions about how much damage VR can cause.
How is VR Helpful?
It has been some years already since the medical industry saw a future interesting enough in Virtual Reality as to start investing in it; however, it is only now that technology finally caught up with it allowing the results to be worth the efforts.
Among the health improvements that can be attained through VR, several mental treatments can be found, such as acrophobia and social paranoia handling. Because these conditions are normally treated by exposure therapy, Virtual Reality can offer less ‘real’ scenarios where patients are able to build stronger confidence.
Moreover, VR has been proven to reduce phantom body pain in paraplegics by generating the illusion of their body limbs being touched. This not only reduces chronic pain but also leaves an open door for future research that can conclude in successful pain treatment.
Likewise, VR software is being used to release stress in bed-ridden patients. This can speed up recovery greatly, especially for those that have survived a stroke or traumatic brain injuries, in which case they are also exposed to VR orientation than can help them regain their lost functions.
And if you want to achieve simpler benefits, there are many apps that can assist you to stop smoking, meditate, and achieve relaxation.
How Is It Dangerous?
As scientists have revealed, Virtual Reality is not the real world, and while your mind might grasp it as such, your body organs get confused thus generating ‘cybersickness’. This is what normally happens when your eyes see one thing and your inner ears perceive something else.
While this can also happen by watching simpler 3D movies, it gets reasonably worse with VR. Similarly, it has been proven that, in rats, constant exposure to VR makes more than half the neurons of the hippocampus shutdown.
In addition, the immersive environment makes users blink less than normally causing dry-eye symptoms which can be as painful as getting stabbed in the eye. And as if that alone weren’t enough, the closeness of the screen to our eyes can also create myopia and severe vision strain, although some sources state it doesn’t do much damage to eyes at all.
While some shrug all of this off and say it will take time for people to adapt to the use of Virtual Reality as it happened with smartphones and tablets, there is no need to say that it is still a bad idea to spend more than the necessary time making usage of the in the relatively harmful VR headsets.
