Virtual Reality Stumbles Into Culture
VR, thanks to Apple's Vision Pro is having a moment again. But how does culture at scale view VR and will it go mainstream?
Even for the majority of the population that isn’t that much into most technologies, it’s hard not to miss all the video clips of people walking around, driving and stumbling with Apple’s new Virtual Reality (VR) headset on. And how rapidly people started stating rules of etiquette. VR is not new, but it’s having an important cultural moment.
Why this matters, what it might mean for the future of VR and how might culture more broadly adopt Virtual Reality. This is a pivotal moment for VR.
VR has been around a while. If one wants to consider that VR is really about manufactured illusions, we might then see it as going back to the Egyptians and Romans who created illusions to entertain the public and for ritual purposes, using architecture, art, music and light. In the Middle Ages, convex mirrors and light were used, for both entertainment purposes as well, most commonly known as the stereoscope.
The technology has improved a wee bit since then. Creating alternate realities has long been a human practice, even going back to our cave dwelling times when we created moving images by painting image shifts on cave walls and the flickering light of fire making it look like, well, a movie.
The first time we took this distanced form of VR and decided to stick it on our heads was back in 1968 and the device was called the “Sword of Damocles” (maybe naming technology products was more fun back then?) It was so heavy, it had to be suspended from the cieling!
There’s an interesting history of VR here if you like. In this article, I’m looking at how VR is entering our sociocultural systems today and how culture is reacting. How humans react as a society, the norms and rules we set, are key indicators of the potential scale of adoption.
Consumer VR headsets have been around just over a decade. The hype has never reached the scale of today’s Generative Aartificial Intelligence (GAI) tools like ChatGPT or Claude. Last year, Apple released it’s Vision Pro product, which they term as spatial computing. The primary difference being that it’s not just for entertainment, but can be used for all kinds of productivity fun.
As it plonked down into consumer hands, the fun began. All technologies have unintended consequences and no technology creator can forecast how people will use technologies. And humans love to play with technology. It’s a key factor not just in how we adopt technology, but how we evolve it to find into our societies.
So, humans being humans and loving to play, some decided wearing the Vision Pro while driving a Tesla on autopilot was a good idea. As was trying to walk around the neighbourhood, sitting in airport waiting lounges and making fund videos.
Perhaps what is most interesting with Apple’s VR headset is that one is not completely shut off from the world like all the others. All other VR headsets immerse you directly into an alternate reality. Apple’s lets you see the outside world. It also has externally facing cameras. So this is a fascinating set of new features.
It should be no surprise then that these VR headsets found themselves wandering about on people’s noggins in the real world. Or that people stumbled and bruised their shins on things. Or that public backlash followed fast.
When Google released the Augmented Reality (AR) Google Glass to the masses in 2015, the term “glasshole” became a cultural reaction quite quickly. The cultural reaction was quick and a decided no-thanks. But Google Glasses have been quite successful in industrial and healthcare uses. Snap has released their AR glasses, which while not widespread are more obvious and that has helped them with adoption more broadly.
Part of the challenge for Apple’s VR headset is that it is quite large and obvious, but Apple products have done well in large part because they send social signals. They tend to be more expensive, but they are also of higher quality than a $500 laptop or smartphone.
The predictions of whether Apple’s VR product will succeed or fail are as predictable as how humans using the tool are unpredictable. The ultimate measure of the success or failure of any technology in society is culture.
It takes time for culture to figure out how and where it wants any given technology to be adopted. A revolutionary technology will tend to cause change in the culture, as I and others have written, but then, what I’ve found, is that culture ends up changing the technology.
These changes are rules, regulations, economics, social norms, traditions and other factors. An example is the smartphone and how we’ve evolved etiquette rules around when and how they are used and we are still evolving these norms and behaviours.
Apple’s VR headset is expensive at USD$3,500+ others like Meta Quest and PlayStation VR cost hundreds of dollars and require additional hardware. VR is still not affordable to the majority of the population. The modern internet didn’t become scalable until the cost of hardware and software along with access to the internet became economically viable for the general population.
While Apple’s device does enable a degree of engagement with the outside world, it still can’t be worn for long periods without messing with things like our sense of balance and ability to move. A challenge for all VR headsets.
The kissing cousin of VR is of course, AR, which has also been around a while. And while both technologies have been hyped in various ways for years, neither has gained significant market attraction, despite the best efforts of marketers.
For now, the invisible hand of culture isn’t outright rejecting VR or AR, we might say it’s a little bit bemused and looking for a reason to adopt it at scale. It just hasn’t found such a case yet. We’re just not sure how it sits with our current norms, traditions and social behaviours.
VR and AR may eventually find their way to mass market appeal and use. But it may take a while yet. Human societies are still trying to figure out how we live in two realities; the physical and the digital worlds. Broader culture sees GAI as a more significant concern today. Few people are worried about headset wearing nerds taking over the world.
There are very powerful uses for VR already. Such as assisting surgeons in complex procedures and making virtual healthcare more accessible and better. In manufacturing and immersive educational programs.
This is still the early phase of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in our world. Our ability to play with these tools is getting easier and more interesting, which will, as has happened before, lead to interesting innovations and advancements.