Written by Manuel Holzer and Janne Witjes
Why do we need to be in a
virtual world? In order to answer this question, we are going to discuss how
the 10 universal psychological needs by Sheldon et al. (2001) relate to the
experience of being in a virtual world. Which human needs are satisfied by
Virtual Reality (VR) and which human needs are possibly endangered by VR? We
will discuss the needs we think are most relevant with respect to being in a
virtual world. 
Pleasure and stimulation is one of
the most obvious and important human needs that is addressed by VR. Lots of
games have been created that are being played inside a virtual world. Basically
any environment full of interesting stimuli can be experienced inside VR. A
virtual world also offers opportunities that may not be (easily) possible in
the real world; if you want, you could be at the top of the highest mountain,
could jump of a building and start flying or could be swimming in the ocean without
anyone or anything restricting you. This way, being inside a virtual world
gives you the chance to act autonomously and
independent, possibly more than in
the real world! Having a lot of control of
what is happening around you and what you are experiencing also leads to
feeling secure. To give an example,
virtual reality is used in exposure therapy where you can face your fears in a
controlled, secure way. When facing your fear of heights, you can increase the
height step by step and at any time you can be back in the real world, safe on
the ground. 
You can also fight
against hordes of zombies or do any extreme sport you ever wanted to do - but
is that really you? No! It is just an avatar you are controlling while sitting
on a couch or moving around in a closed room. The needs of healthy and bodily - feeling strong and healthy are just an
illusion. The greatest danger while playing games in VR is that, because of the
realism, you might transfer your own needs to the avatar in the virtual reality
and forget about the needs you have in the real world. Only because you have a
lot of friends and a crowd loving you in VR, it does not mean that the friends
are there for you in the real world or that they even exist. So you satisfied
your needs for relatedness and
belongingness in the virtual reality but if you turn the VR glasses off -
you might still be alone and feel lonely.
There are a lot of
different perspectives of VR - some of them might be positive and some might be
negative. But in the end everyone needs to find out the best way of using VR
for him or herself. But one thing is true for everyone, whether you are using
VR or not - you live in the real world and need to satisfy the needs of
yourself and not of some avatar.
References
Aino Ahtinen - Lecture 5
(24.9.2018) from the course: Psychology of Pervasive Computing
Sheldon, Kennon M.;
Elliot, Andrew J.; Kim, Youngmee; Kasser, T. (2001). What Is Satisfying About
Satisfying events? Testing 10 Candidate Psychological Needs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
80(2), 325–339.
https://doi.org/10.1037//O022-3514.80.2.325
Pictures taken from:
- https://salzburg.arbeitplus.at/veranstaltung/heikle-gespraeche-meistern/
- https://skewsme.com/blog/2014/07/virtual-reality/
- http://11thhourvr.com/
Hi and thank you for this interesting post. I got the turning point in your story. You actually describe why we do not need to be in a virtual world to satisfy our needs.
ReplyDeleteIt is also interesting to see, that new technologies facing some of the same questions and doubts, as previous technologies already did. But as well as we accustomed to moving pictures or 3d-games we will do it with VR. I like the thought that we are still far away from replacing our real life with something else. But if VR is able to address at least one human need, and it does this well, it may can be a big shot.
-Robert Fuhrmann
I agree with the points you make in this post, especially those regarding the danger of transferring one's needs to the VR avatar. Personally, I like the thought of using VR to enhance the user's actual social life. Assuming, for example, someone's family members live a long distance away. While we already have video calls, I could imagine (at some point in the future) using VR to recreate the users' bodies in a virtual room, creating the illusion of an actual face-to-face conversation.
ReplyDelete- Sarah Frank
I agree with you on the points you mentioned. Besides, I, who am interested in this kind of technology, did not know that it was used for therapeutic purposes. Thank you for teaching me something!
ReplyDeleteSometimes it is difficult to live in this world. Indeed, we are all going through difficult times. Therefore, sometimes we need to escape and want to live elsewhere. I think these technologies offer us this desired escape. However, we must be careful not to become addicted to this kind of environment to the point of preferring the virtual to the real.
- Mathieu HENRY
I really liked this article. It described the topic very well. I am agreed with the author that VR can control fear in a secure way. If anyone is afraid of heights they can use VR to get rid of it by playing such kind of games. It works for me. But maybe it won't be helpful for other people.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, VR can bring happiness to disabled people. For example, if a disabled person who has only one leg but inside the VR he feels that he have is both legs and with this, he can run or walk than he might feel happy. However, he can only feel the happiness inside the VR world but whenever he will come back to the real world and see the actual situation than he might get more upset. So, its depend on the person that they need help from VR or not
When I saw the title of your blog post, I immediately thought about an article I recently read. It envisioned a future where most of the jobs have been rendered obsolete by artificial intelligence and the humanity needs something to do. According to the article's author Yuval Noah Harari virtual reality could provide meaning into our life. The article is strongly on the philosophical side, but I'll link it here nevertheless as I found it to be a very interesting read: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/08/virtual-reality-religion-robots-sapiens-book
ReplyDeleteExposure therapy is a great example of how VR technology can be used for something truly useful. I would imagine that there's also potential in using virtual reality to spread empathy by providing impactful VR experiences: e.g. stepping into the shoes of someone living in a war zone or a child being bullied, just to mention some ideas. VR could even be used in enhancing learning and life skills at schools.
Your post is really interesting! You described very well the need that are satisfied and more importantly explained why they are satisfied. The examples of use you gave were also to the point as they made it easier to understand and imagine the need that are being satisfied. The use of VR in exposure therapy was a totally new concept for me, interesting to say the least. Thank you, great job!
ReplyDelete