The phrase “virtual reality” refers to a sort of technology that creates realistic representations of artificial surroundings. It is a computer-generated simulation in which people may interact with one another in a three-dimensional virtual environment using electrical gadgets. Even while this concept extends back to the nineteenth century, it wasn’t until 2016 that more powerful virtual reality headgear was widely accessible. During that time, over 230 different companies were working on comparable products. This included well-known corporations such as Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon, among others.
Virtual reality is a phrase that is most frequently associated with the gaming industry; nonetheless, it is a technology that has a wide range of applications and is slowly finding its way into many other facets of life, revolutionizing how we grow and interact. Its cultural impact is expanding year after year. As a result, in the following sections, we will look at a few places where technology has found an application that has unwittingly influenced society.
Changes in Socialization and Artistic Expression Caused by Virtual Worlds
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are projected to be the trendiest trend in 2021. They are either data units or one-of-a-kind virtual assets that are stored on a digital ledger known as a blockchain. They began in 2014, but they did not take up speed until 2020. The artist Grimes was then able to sell ten pieces of digital art for about $6 million on the auction platform Nifty Gateway in early 2021. As a result, they became extremely popular. After then, a lot of other musicians began to follow suit. The band Kings of Leon recently released their new album, When You See Yourself as an NFT, and the artist Beeple recently had enormous success selling a digital collage at auction for the outrageous amount of $69 million.
However, one exciting element of the growth in the usage of non-fungible tokens is that it resulted in the establishment of metaverses. Metaverses are shared virtual worlds in which users, represented by avatars, may talk and transact with one another using fungible and non-fungible tokens. Some of the most well-known virtual environments of this type include the Sandbox, Decentraland, Axie Infinity, and Somnium Space. These are three-dimensional environments that can be experienced by anybody with a virtual reality headset and internet access. They have many of the same cultural establishments that are available in the actual world, such as museums, concert halls, nightclubs, and a range of other cultural enterprises. They even promote financial investments by giving opportunities in real estate and industry. Individuals in the virtual world of Decentraland, for example, may build and run their own fully working casinos, replete with an upgraded version of live dealer blackjack. As a result, there isn’t much of a distinction between these virtual worlds and real life. However, because of their one-of-a-kind locations and economies, they stimulate the creation of innovative means of communication as well as new interpersonal connections.
Virtual Reality Can Assist in Understanding Cultural Differences
In 2018, engineering students at North Carolina State University took part in a study that taught them about the cultural assumptions that impact business communication. A grant provided to the university’s Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications division in honor of its innovative use of technology was utilized to fund the research. Because teaching cultural competency has long been a feature of the university’s Global Training Initiative, the organization intended to provide specific training for business people.
The effort included a virtual workshop in which participants from China, Singapore, India, and the United States discussed issues of disagreement in their respective nations. During the first part of the session, guests put on virtual reality headsets to gain an inside peek of a conference taking place in a Chinese workplace. In the second section of the exercise, students take on the role of one of the other people in the room, speaking in the first person. Several times during the meeting, the action came to a standstill, allowing the participants to hear the ideas being formed by their parallel selves. These stop-action vignettes shed insight into the cultural assumptions that are inherent in the dialogue and show how those assumptions impact the information flow.
The project manager, Ilin Misaras, feels that using virtual reality (VR) technology in this and other comparable activities is critical because witnessing an event through the eyes of another person and listening to their thoughts may aid in the development of empathy. Participants were better equipped to justify their character’s viewpoints after attending the session. As a result, the use of VR for scenario-based experiences has the potential to have a wide range of applications and help in the building of connections.
Virtual reality is transforming the development of interpersonal skills
When cultural diversity and virtual reality (VR) are discussed, it is important to note that the United States Department of Defense incorporates VR-based activities into its training programs. This is an important point to keep in mind. These exercises provide members of the armed forces with realistic experiences that prepare them to operate effectively in culturally complicated environments. The use of virtual reality in the workplace is one strategy that numerous multinational corporations, such as Procter & Gamble, have implemented to foster a more compassionate and inclusive culture in the workplace (VR). These scenarios are modeled after actual occurrences of prejudice in society.
The incorporation of technologies such as virtual reality into educational settings offers several benefits, one of which is the enhancement of the visual aspect of the learning process. One of its primary goals is to facilitate the development of students and instructors’ capacities for efficient communication as well as emotional quotients in the course of their work together. To foster a growth mindset, the educational setting must be adaptable and encourages new perspectives. Because there is no other place that provides the same opportunity, trainees and students are only going to be able to learn so much about themselves and the problems they are attempting to solve in a circumstance such as this. With the assistance of a virtual reality environment, they will be able to discover their capacity to adapt to varying circumstances and develop into individuals who are better equipped to collaborate with others.