The End of Distance

How Social VR is Going to Bring Our World Closer Together

Today marks the biggest revolution in gaming since Pong took games from the realm of boards into the digital. For the first time ever consumers will be able to step inside digital worlds and live out their dreams of fighting intergalactic spaces battles, exploring ancient dungeons, and following a fox around as he picks up coins.

All jokes aside, this is a truly transformational moment in the history of gaming. Personally, I believe that as video games increasingly become lived experiences, people will stop looking at them just as games but rather as our fantasies come to life. We’re going to see an explosion in the categories and genres of games as developers fully flesh out what’s possible in the medium. Humanity finally has a dream machine and we’re going to use it to its full capacity.

But as easy as it is to get caught up in the gaming hype on day like today, we can also look forward to what this technology will do for humanity. Today is not just a transformational moment in the history of gaming. It is also the day when we plant the seeds for a revolution in the way we socialize, learn, and work. That’s because virtual reality doesn’t just allow us to go anywhere and do anything, it also allows us to have those experiences with anyone in the world.

Social VR

Social VR has already become one of the hottest use cases of virtual reality. Altspace and JanusVR have thousands of users chatting, watching movies, playing games, and just hanging out together in VR. Oculus has been pushing trivia games, VRChat has regular events, and vTime has even gotten Social VR working on Google Cardboard. It seems like we’re quickly getting to the point where we don’t need to hang out in person any more.

“I’ve got all the friends I need right here!” Photo of British artist Mark Farid.

For those that aren’t in the know, Social VR is essentially a multi-user virtual reality environment. Just like in regular multi-user video games, avatars representing different people can talk and interact with each other. The big difference is that in virtual reality these interactions feel real. Although the other person might look like a space monkey or a My Little Pony character, if the avatar moves and sounds like a real person your brain believes that they are.

If you’ve never tried one of these Social VR experiences before, drop what you’re doing right now and check it out. It’s amazing how real it feels. Because virtual reality convinces your brain on a fundamental level that the virtual reality simulation you’re experiencing is real, your brain also believes all the people in that virtual reality environment are real too. And when you capture those people’s head and hand movements and pair that with 3D audio coming from each user, it feels exactly like you’re talking to them face-to-face.

This is nothing short of revolutionary. While the avatars still look like video game characters and due to the Uncanny Valley probably will for the next few years, we can now interact with people around the globe as if they were in the same room. As graphics improve, we’re going to get to the point where virtual communication is nearly as good as face-to-face communication. Traveling purely for the purpose of meeting someone in person could become a thing of the past.

And if you thought we were lazy before…

We will be able to hang out on a regular basis with friends from other cities or even countries. Distance will no longer be a limiting factor in who we interact with. If the Internet made the world a little smaller, virtual reality will make it a singularity — as if all space was contained in a single point. And, just like a real singularity, that’s when interesting things begin to happen.

One World Classroom

One of the most powerful applications of Social VR is in education. By bringing students together virtually, Social VR has the potential to make education more global, equitable, and interesting. Imagine a classroom with students from around the world connected through their virtual reality headsets. Teachers can be the “best of the best,” using virtual reality to teach hundreds or thousands of students at the same time. Lessons on Ancient Rome or particle physics can be accompanied by stunning 3D visuals that immerse students in their education.

Anyone that’s read Ready Player One already knows exactly what I’m talking about. In the book, the main character lives in a slum but is able to connect to a beautiful virtual classroom with students from all over. Despite the inherent disadvantages he has in his life, he is still able to get a first class education.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the school are the ways teachers are able to control the classroom. Talking between students can be limited to classroom discussion times and students attention can be focused on each individual lesson.

In ways that are a lot less painful than this.

Jeremy Bailenson at the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab has studied a number of interesting ways that virtual reality can be used to increase attention and retention in learning environments. Virtual reality can be used to have teachers mimic student body language, maintain eye contact, or even have every student sit at the front of the class.

But more than just a control mechanism, virtual reality can be used to make education more interesting. The Virtual Reality Learning Experience has already been bringing virtual reality experiences into classrooms for virtual field trips to space or the bottom of the ocean. Google’s Expeditions Pioneer Program has taken this even further by developing experiences specifically designed for classroom lessons that teachers can share on Google Cardboard headsets.

Immersive VR Education has the most comprehensive program to make the classrooms of Ready Player One a reality. They’re the team behind some of the most interesting educational VR experiences from Titans of Space to the Apollo 11 Experience to a ER VR, a medical training simulation. Recently they announced Lecture VR, a multi-user virtual classroom that allows teachers to bring in amazing 3D visuals from a Mars Rover to King Tut’s death mask.

The end result is a program that can finally achieve Salman Khan’s dream of a One World Schoolhouse. While prior online education programs have suffered from low student retention, VR classrooms keep students engaged and interested in the material. Eventually we’ll finally have global high schools, colleges, and continuing education courses available to everyone in the world. That means a well educated workforce ready to enter the digital economy.

Eliminating Distance as a Factor in Business

Virtual reality is quickly becoming a hot topic in the business world. Top brands have been creating virtual reality marketing experiences for everything from hotels to cars to sodas. It’s already being used a training tool for doctors and crane operators. Bloomberg is working on a virtual reality version of its famous market data terminal, taking advantage of the fact that you can have as many monitors as you want in VR.

But the most important application of virtual reality to business is in communications. Unlike videoconferencing, virtual reality really makes you feel like you’re in the same room as another person. That means that all sorts of meetings that currently require travel can be replaced by entirely virtual meetings. Sales calls? Conferences? Training seminars? They can all be replicated in a virtual environment.

“Now when can we eliminate these meetings altogether?” Image courtesy of Highways England.

The best part is that virtual reality not only replaces but enhances each of these types of meetings. In a virtual sales call, you can bring in examples of the product, show it within the potential customer’s workflow, and have experts on hand ready to answer questions. Virtual conferences can have incredible 3D visuals to impress attendees as well as access to the best speakers in the world without paying for their travel or accommodation. A training seminar in virtual reality could have any necessary props or tools on hand and an environment specifically designed for the training scenario.

But this is just the beginning. Virtual reality has the potential to disrupt the office itself. The enthusiastic response to Virtual Desktop in the VR community shows that people are willing to work in a virtual environment. Now combine the virtual desktop with social VR. People can work together in the same virtual office from anywhere in the world.

This eliminates the need for office space without any of the limitations that currently plague entirely remote workforces. Anyone that’s worked from home for long periods of time knows that it can be socially isolating and occasionally difficult to concentrate on work without supervision. There isn’t the same flow of ideas and ease of information sharing that you get when everyone works in the same place. But in a virtual office, you get all the benefits of working together without paying exorbitant corporate real estate prices.

An effective entirely remote workforce means that employees can live anywhere in the world without regard to where their companies are. Teams from London, Wyoming, Bangladesh, and Cape Town can work together to solve problems and develop products. When coupled with other emerging technologies like additive manufacturing, automated business tools, and robotics, companies can have incredible flexibility in how they operate creating a far more competitive economy.

Social VR is one of the most transformative concepts to arise out of the virtual reality revolution. While the Internet allowed us to connect with anyone in the world, it was still through impersonal communications. Virtual reality makes those communications feel visceral and natural, finally eliminating the barriers that still separate our world. If the world was a small place before, today marks the day it gets a whole lot smaller.