Many people think that the video gaming industry will benefit the most from the resurgence of virtual reality. Through numerous polls people rank gaming as what they feel VR will be used for the most, about four times more than military and medical uses (Statista). However, where Virtual Reality stands to make the most impact is not in gaming, as adoption has slowed in the past year (Swant). It has more of a future in helping people like Bonny Tarantino, who suffers from Stargardt’s Disease, a disease which effectively makes her nearsighted in a way that glasses are not able to help. Using a Google Cardboard and her phone she is able to use an app developed for people who are nearsighted to help her see. The only other alternative she could be using is a $15,000 device that does a similar thing. This is only one example how VR can help people through its unique way of displaying images and lower cost in addition to being a well established technology.

VR is not a new technology by any means. The basic concept to take stereoscopic images and view them through special lenses has been around since at least 1838 (vrSociety). In 1960 the first head mounted display or HMD was invented. It didn’t have any sort of tracking and was designed to just watch movies. In 1961 headtracking was invented by a couple of engineers for use in the military. The idea being they could place a camera in a war zone or precarious situation and be able to look around using a HMD. In the late 80s headsets started to be sold commercially. The cheapest being $9,400 and the most expensive being $49,000. Starting in the early 90s the only place to experience VR was at the local arcade, if you were lucky. This was true until around 2016, Google, using the immense technological improvements in smart phones, especially high resolution displays and motion tracking, to release Google cardboard. Around the same time Oculus and HTC released their own HMD’s with super high res displays and advanced motion tracking, with relatively lower costs to the VR of the 90s. The drop in cost coupled with an increase in accessibility has caused an explosion of uses for VR technologies from the classroom to the practice field. These advances in technology have made it possible for VR to help all sorts of people. The unique attributes of the technology allows it to first help those with disabilities. Using the same benefits the disabled get from VR, athletes, professionals, and students can save time and money utilizing VR.    

One key area where VR is immerging is improving the lives for the disabled. VR therapy is spreading rapidly due to the different experiences people can have. One obvious use is helping people face their fears. If someone is afraid of heights they can go through the experience of standing at the edge of a skyscraper, if they’re afraid of public speaking they can give lectures to a virtual classroom, and if they’re afraid of spiders they can be put in a room full of it. The idea being the more used to the fear a person becomes the less scared they are of it. Experiences like that would be unnecessarily expensive or simply impossible without VR technologies, but that is just a simple use. VR therapy ranges from distracting burn victims from their pain to helping sufferers of PTSD cope with traumatic memories (Hoffman). In Minneapolis a senior care center has beguan experimenting with VR to help seniors cope with anxiety and depression. They take patients on virtual trips, or as Joe Carlson puts it, “They can sit back and let a boat ferry them along a tour of Amsterdam’s famed canals. They can watch scofflaw rock climbers at Minnehaha Falls” (Star). In short, allowing the senior citizens to escape the confines of their home. A different feeling than just watching the National Geographic channel on TV.  The seniors reported after their experiences feeling less depressed and in an overall better mood. The success of these therapies is mostly due to the immersiveness VR allows. Immersiveness is why VR is so good at distracting burn patients,;it forces people to pay attention. As Hunter G. Hoffman in Scientific American puts it,

Human attention has been likened to a spotlight, allowing us to select some information to process and to ignore… while a patient is engaged in a [VR] program, the spotlight of his attention is no longer focused on the wound and the pain but drawn into the virtual world.  

The ability to completely captivate its audience opens VR up a world of possibilities in helping people. People suffering with autism have trouble in certain situations such as driving and crossing the street. They have problems adapting to new situations, so VR is the perfect solution to help them adapt. Researchers from the University of Haifa are testing out teaching kids to cross busy streets utilizing VR. They found that most kids were able to transfer the experience to the real world and improved crossing of real streets.(Josman et. al). In short, the experiences felt real enough that the kids could make the connection. The underlying theme in Vr therapy is that it’s able to immerse the viewer completely in an experience. Researches and doctors have taken this ability to help the disabled. Now with the dive in prices and VR being more readily available, other groups have been looking into utilizing it.

Professionals have begun to use VR as a means of training. The technology is suited perfectly for this kind of work. In preparing for the PyeongChang Olympics, skiers took virtual training runs down the mountain. This allowed them to scope out the best lines for events where they’ll only be able to have one or two practice runs. The company who provided the software STRIVR is no stranger to training athletes. Becoming good at a sport requires practice which means repetition. For an NFL quarterback they are able to take reps in practice for a limited amount of time before fatigue sets in and it’s time to go home. As Rick Maese of fortune magazine says “research shows that seeing real humans in action helps the brain refine its timing and stay focused.” This is an example of how VR is being used to gain a competitive advantage. It’s the same reason that the police and the military do simulated combat scenarios, or someone goes to the golf simulator, save time and money. The technology doesn’t just apply to helping athletes looking to get a few more practice reps. Quickly, companies are starting to use it as a cheap way to train employees. Deutsche Bahn, the company that runs the German train system has begun to train a lot of its employees in VR. The training allows employees to work with 3d renderings of equipment to learn how to use them when they’re out on the job. ‘"VR is a great, economical way to provide hands-on training that is almost impossible to replicate in the real world," said Martin Repondek of Deutschbahn” (Fink). Walmart and other retailers have started training its employees for extreme situations like Black Friday by simulating it in VR. Much like the researchers working with autistic children put the children on a busy simulated streets. If Vr is to survive, it isn’t going to be gamers that make it happen; it’s big companies. The education system can work the same as a big company in terms of buying power.

Schools have started to hop on the VR train. At McLaurin elementary school they are following the examples of senior center Minneapolis. They are taking kids on virtual field trips to all over the world. According to the media specialist for the school, Stephanie Thomas, “Instead of showing videos and pictures of things and reading a book, we could kind of let them step into the place and really pull them into what they’re learning” (qtd. in Cross). This is important for young kids who have problems paying attention for long periods of time, not unlike distracting the burn patients from their pain. That is not the only advantage of VR education. Researchers in Beijing testing the effects of learning with VR found that

Not only was VR-based education shown to improve student test scores and knowledge retention compared with traditional classroom education, but the study also provided clear confirmation that children who had tested below average in the pre-study test were able to outperform the test's top scorers after having undergone a VR-enhanced curriculum. (Vive)

This is great news for visual and hands-on learners, who would otherwise be left behind by a conventional curriculum. This is the promise of VR technologies in the classroom:  it has the power to transfer students to new worlds and bring all students along with it.

    In summary, VR has the ability to change how we do things, and not just in gaming. It has numerous uses in the medical field from therapy to training. The immersive nature of it is perfect for focusing those that would normally be distracted. It also allows people to relive past memories. For seniors and school children they are able to make new memories to help them escape from where they are. Big companies have adopted VR to train employees quickly and cheaply. As adoption slows among consumers of VR technology it grows amongst professionals. The best use for VR is as a tool, although it can be used as a means of entertainment it’s not much of an improvement over the norm. As a tool however, it offers valuable advantages over conventional methods.