The Ultimate Escapism

Is VR addiction really something we need to worry about now? Currently, eye strain, cybersickness, and a lack of sense of touch in VR make it far less immersive than portrayed in sci-fi. You can’t yet plug in for hours and hours. “It’s not at a holodeck level yet. I don’t think you’re seeing a public health challenge,” says Albert “Skip” Rizzo, director of medical virtual reality at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. In fact, experts have been speculating and researching how VR technologies could be used to treat addiction. For example, alcoholics immersed in a virtual bar or a virtual party can be taught to manage their cravings and develop coping and refusal skills so that they can prevent a relapse when they’re near the real thing.
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