Running Head: VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGY

Literature Review Final Draft: Virtual Reality Technology

Carlos A. Pando
University of Texas at El Paso

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Abstract
For many years, virtual reality has been considered one of the top quality devices in the
digital technology industry. The idea of virtual reality came to the world in the early 1950s, but it
wasnt until the 1980s that Steven Lisberger decided to bring up the promise of a virtual reality
world in his film Tron (The Verge, 2015). The NASA were one of the first organizations to ever
use flight simulation as a practical digital-simulation application, entertainment and model uses
came in several years later. This technology has surprisingly evolved into high end HDM (head
mounted displays) with top notch quality to give its users a unique feeling of being in a real
environment by enhancing their senses, while being submerged into a vast virtual world. Along
with the increase of quality, the rise of doubts and health problems accompany this technology.
Many people believe that virtual reality could bring many problems despite the many advantages
that could also arise from this technology.

Keywords: Virtual Reality, Technology, Simulation, Senses, Environment

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Introduction
The promise of virtual reality has always been enormous. Put on these googles, go
nowhere, and be transported anywhere (The Verge, 2015). Virtual reality technology has been
growing strong for the past decade, sending people to other worlds without the effort of
leaving the living room where man meets machine, but what happens is strictly within the
mind (The Verge, 2015). A few years ago, no one expected to have the technology we currently
have in smartphones and people even believed that it would be impossible. This is the promise
that virtual reality has today. This technology came to its peak when Facebook bought Oculus (a
virtual reality company) in early 2014 for $2 billion dollars (The Verge, 2015). In virtual reality,
a person uses a head-mounted display (HMD) which displays three-dimensional images and
work together to create an experience to the user, and even some devices also allow the user to
experience additional sensory input, e.g. sound or video which contributes to their overall
experience (Virtual Reality, 2015). This technology is widely used in architecture, sport,
medicine, arts, military, and entertainment. One example of the use of this technology in the
medical world is surgical simulation, which helps surgeons to have hands-on experience and
training before a real life surgery. Despite all these great appliances and uses for this technology,
most people do not believe that virtual reality is at all convenient or even healthy. This paper will
seek to deeply analyze four major concerns/questions that people may have about virtual realitys
impact in human lives, which are: Does this technology puts human beings health at risk? How
does virtual reality benefit specialized industries and corporations? Does virtual reality
technology connect people, or rather does it isolate them? And finally, can this technology turn
around your morals? Many readers and viewers believe as these questions to be true, but there
are two sides to this amazing yet deceiving technology.

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Does virtual reality technology puts human beings health at risk?

Many people think that the use of virtual reality may have secondary effects that could
cause harm to ones health. They point to physical and mental problems that some people who
use the technology have already experienced (Science Clarified, 2015). Such problems go
further beyond than the typical nausea caused by simulator movements. For instance, engineers
and designers of flight simulators found out that pilots who had used these simulators would
often make mistakes during an actual flight because of small differences in the details between
the virtual reality environment and reality. For one thing, simulators cannot mimic the effects of
acceleration that a pilot feels during flight (Science Clarified, 2015). For this reason, now a days
a pilot is not allowed to fly until they have been away from a simulator for at least twenty-four
hours so that they can adapt to the real world and abandon the feelings and sensation experienced
inside the virtual reality environment. Many researchers have brought up questions about
whether this technology could cause permanent changes in a humans health if used long-term,
especially in children, whose brains are still developing and therefore are more easily modified
than those of adults (Science Clarified, 2015). Psychologist and science writer Richard
deGrandpre, author of Digitopia, claims that continuous use of virtual reality could alter the way
people see the real world like how it should look, how you should feel when living it, and how
fast it should really go. A research done by Carlos A. Pando tested this question by developing a
survey among college students in the University of Texas at El Paso. 77% of the participants
believe in that, some way or another, virtual reality affects humans health at some point (Pando,
2015). Another concern about virtual reality and human health has been raised among the
technological world. Desensitization (a person who is no longer affected by extreme acts of
behavior) is being closely related with virtual reality and its uses. This refers to virtual reality

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games in which there are high levels of violence or training exercises for the military in which
soldiers engage in simulated combat scenarios which include killing (Virtual Reality, 2015).
Although this problem may refer to everyone, it focuses more on people who tend to fall under
cyber-addiction. These are people who become addicted to such virtual reality environments and
start to slowly remove that boundary between real and virtual life. 46% of Pandos survey
responses agrees that desensitization is an ongoing issue, but 36% believe that it depends if the
user presents some form of mental illness (the rest completely disagree that this issue exists)
(Pando, 2015). Virtual criminality also has a small possibility to happen. Imagine when there are
several users who are immersed within a virtual environment, but one user becomes injured or
traumatized due to the actions of another person in that situation (Virtual Reality, 2015). The
issue about this is that if it would be possible for someone to suffer such damage as a result of a
violent action that was carried out inside a virtual environment. All these problems are an
ongoing issue, but these disadvantages are almost minute in comparison to all the benefits that
virtual reality brings its users, but it is important that such minorities are addressed.
How does this technology benefit specialized industries and corporations?
In the 1980s the companies of NASA, the Department of Defense and the National
Science Foundation funded much of the research and development for virtual reality projects.
$80,000 was also contributed by the CIA for research purpose (Virtual Reality, 2015).

(A)

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Virtual reality has been adopted by the U.S military (Army, Navy and Air Force) many years ago
for training and research purposes. It is primary useful to train soldiers for combat situations or
other extremely dangerous encounters where they are expected to react in an appropriate manner
(Virtual Reality, 2015). Soldiers do so by using virtual reality simulators to prevent any risk of
death or life threatening injuries. A major benefit from this, is that a certain combat scenario can
be repeated unlimited amount of times until the user is well prepared. This has proven to be
safer and less costly than traditional training methods (Virtual Reality, 2015). The military also
uses this technology for flight and battlefield simulation, medic training, vehicle simulation, and
virtual boot camp. Virtual reality also works to treat soldiers who suffer post-traumatic stress
disorders. They can practice how to deal with such traumas in a safe environment and be exposed
to whatever triggers such traumas, to later counter them and fully recover. In the Army (infantry),
virtual reality is typically used through head mounted displays (HMD) and soldiers can squad up
with multiple users to run team tactics. Military training is prohibitively expensive especially
airborne training so it is more cost-effective to use flight simulators than actual aircraft (Virtual
Reality, 2015). The flight simulators are probably the most used and popular virtual reality
technology devices used in the military due to its benefits such as low cost and time efficiency.
This technology is also useful in the area of construction and engineering. An example of this is
to have the ability to test multiple structures of buildings to start of the right track when the real
life project is in place. One important factor that needs to be thoroughly tested is the viability of
an architectural design (Virtual Reality, 2015). Structures need to be perfect through digital
means since human judgement is erroneous and will present a danger when building such
structures. Also, even after creating a structure of a building, workers can explore such structure
and edit details like proper locations of exits and wall dimensions. The most useful perk of using

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virtual reality in construction is that you can simulate the construction itself and organize
machinery around the work site for more efficiency. This technology is not yet approved for
construction, but its under development and its just a matter of time before it becomes a reality.
Virtual reality will allow us to make grander and more robust buildings in a shorter space of
time a very desirable property indeed (Virtual Reality, 2015). Finally, virtual reality in the
field of engineering basically includes 3D modelling of tools and techniques that could help with
designing and how such tools work. Engineering companies (like Lockheed Martin) also uses
this technology to test dangerous military objects in a safe environment and make changes as
necessary, which saves both time and money (Virtual Reality, 2015). This technology allows
such companies to expose very small details and provide them with the possibility to obtain
higher end graphics and quality. Generally, virtual reality works perfectly to check for faults,
design issues, structural weaknesses, planning, prototyping, among many other uses, just like in
the following image:

(B)
In the survey conducted by Pando, he demonstrates that 97% of the responses agree that virtual
reality could greatly benefit companies and industries who train employees and develop virtual
models of structures (Pando, 2015).

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Does virtual reality technology connect people, or rather does it isolate them?
Many people argue that virtual reality technology isolates everyone from reality, just like
internet connected devices like a smartphone or a tablet. But supporters of virtual reality say that
this technology will change how communication is seen, bringing people around the world
closer together (Science Clarified, 2015). The other side claims that going into this online
environment will become a way of avoiding and escaping real life problems. Many people
believe that constant exposure to this technology could transform a persons consciousness.
Users who are unhappy with their body shape may rely on virtual reality to raise their motivation
by creating a good looking avatar. Also, the issue about people claiming to be something but in
reality are something else exists, like a child molester pretending to be a child or teen. After all,
this mainly falls under the small percentage of people who would be considered as computer
addicts. Just like in computers, people can spend countless hours online using their virtual reality
headsets, ignoring all kinds of real life responsibilities.

(C)
Many users try to escape from reality and merge into the world of videogames, and since this
technology makes it more realistic, it is a top choice for anyone in this kind of situation. It is

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important to keep both online and offline lives in a balance and not fully rely on one side. Pando
concludes that 85% of the responses in his survey would still use this technology as a form of
training or just mere entertainment after being explained what the isolation or addiction problems
consisted of (Pando, 2015). After all, virtual reality cannot replace a warm smile, a firm
handshake or a reassuring hug. It is essential to connection with someone in [face-to-face]
conversation and to share good and bad feelings to ward off loneliness (Science Clarified,
2015).
Can this technology turn around your morals?
Desensitization was previously mentioned as an issue that relates to ones health that
could easily change the morals of a human being. This could mean that taking someones life or
physically/verbally harm someone would not impact the author of the action in a way that it
normally should. This technology can also work the other way around, by convincing users to
enhance their morals. Virtual cruelty is an experiment where volunteers wearing HMD headsets
enter a room with a woman who is caressing their arm (during this time, someone in real life is
doing this action to enhance the sensory feeling). The user then looks into a mirror inside the
virtual world and realize theyre in fact a small girl wearing a skirt. A little later, things take a
sinister turn. The volunteer is shown a view hovering above the scene instead of acting as the
girl. The previous affectionate woman inexplicably lashes out, slapping the girl twice on the
face (Reid, 2015). The desired outcome of this experiment is to captivate the users reaction to
when the user realizes that, once being the girl herself, they could be in that position getting
slapped by the woman. This technique could be used to counter racism and abuse toward each
other. Through this experiment, by the user of virtual reality, one can learn what it is like to be
the victim of these atrocities or at least understand what it is like to experience abuse. This

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experiment also brings up such abusers to expose them to feel and learn what sort of damage
they are inflicting on others from a psychological point of view (Reid, 2015). Morality, in the
field of philosophy, could be subjective to people, so the way that virtual reality could impact
someones views and ideas could differ from one another. After all, it depends on the users
amount of time spent in the use of this technology, which if excessive, could bring many
problems just like many other electronic devices.
Conclusion
In conclusion, virtual reality is the creation of a virtual environment presented to our
senses in such a way that we experience it as if we were really there (Virtual Reality, 2015).
This technology can be both beneficial and harmful to society, but the disadvantages that this
technology brings to society are bliss compared to the previously mentioned advantages. The
research conducted by Pando demonstrates that the main virtual reality marketing audience
(young adults) has many doubts about this technology, but at the same time are very aware of
what the consequences are if used wrongly. As years pass by and technology advances, virtual
reality will become cheaper (a HMD headset varies around almost two thousand dollars in the
market as of today) and more accessible to everyone. We can expect to see many more
innovative uses for the technology in the future and perhaps a fundamental way in which we
communicate and work thanks to the possibilities of virtual reality (Virtual Reality, 2015).

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Works Cited
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Heffernan, Virginia (2014, November 14). Virtual reality fails its way to success. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/virtual-reality-fails-its-way-tosuccess.html?_r=1
Kramer, Brayan (2014, November 16). Bringing shared experiences out of the virtual world
[Image file]. Retrieved from http://www.bryankramer.com/driving-shareableexperiences-virtual-reality/
Lepton, Kevin (2011, July 29). Future virtual reality [Image file]. Retrieved from
http://www.futuretechnology500.com/index.php/future-virtual-reality/
Pando, Carlos (2015, October 23). Virtual reality technology awareness. Retrieved from
http://www.surveyrock.com/survey/distribute/2680
Reid, David (2010, August 20). Virtual reality tackles tough question. Retrieved from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/8918282.stm

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Science Clarified. Which world is real? The future of virtual reality. Retrieved from
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