How much of VR is Too Much !!!

Gartner predicts 25% of Global Population will spend at least one hour a day in Metaverse for work, shopping, education, social etc. by 2026.

That’s an estimated 2 billion people spending an hour a day on all kinds of digital immersive technologies, which largely comprises of VR / AR as the primary technological component. We saw the widespread success of Augmented Reality a few years back with the game Pokemon Go, which led to millions of users spending more than 30 minutes on average everyday garnering billions in revenue to the organization concerned.

It involved combination of technologies like Augmented Reality, GPS, 4G Internet etc. This game is a proof how addictive the technology can be. But in all its honesty even after 6 years of such a roaring success Augmented Reality didn’t find any other such vastly successful abode.

We have all raved about how the social media is addictive and several discussions have been tabled around the meaningless scrolling that happens through these social media apps. The average app usage of India is about 4.7 hours a day and according to a recent report from data.ai and 7 out of 10 minutes spent on mobile is towards social, photo and video apps.

There is such a huge disconnect amongst the people today even without immersive devices making in roads into mainstream households. Think of a situation, wherein every Human Being has a VR Gear (or) some sort of Alternate Reality Device mounted on their Heads, that scenario looks straight out of an evil Sci-Fi movie.

The above statement might be ironic and contradictory coming from a company who is working on an indigenous VR Device which blocks your vision with the physical world.

We are not contradicting our work, we are just stating that VR can not be used as it is now for mainstream consumer household without making advancements on its form factors and social connect. Our core theme is the B2B segment while focusing on the Industrial & Enterprise arm of our world. The true immersive nature of VR is such a bliss and so addictive in nature that if put into good use can enable lot of use cases and real problems which can and are being solved by companies like us and numerous people across the Globe.

But the primary point of this write up in particular is the notion behind people getting more disconnected in the name of technology. We personally believe that smartphones were the single most technological component with the fastest evolutionary cycle. It kind of almost peaked up within 5-7 years of its launch and slowly started fizzling after that. VR on the other hand is a technology that has been in development in different forms and names for more than five decades now. Same was the case with the PC Industry as well. Devices and Technology with a strong foundation will always have its firm foothold.

One single reason why the smartphones had a larger adoption compared to PC’s & Laptops were its ability to cater to the use case of wider spectrum of people and the basic mobile nature of the technology. Taking this into account, the Smartwatches didn’t have a roaring success as that of a Smartphone. They stuck to its niche audience segment and is still evolving. There are lot of visual mediums and displays an average user spends his time on a day and the bulk of it is occupied by smartphones. If the VR Devices are going to replace (or) substitute a smartphone as the most vital display device, then it’s current form is far from reach for daily activities.

Not everyone is a tech aficionado whose interested in wearing a Head Gear and walking around. We need to have more compact and sleek devices that can still maintain social connect with the people around while providing immersive experience of VR. We already have some Mixed Reality Devices that are catering to this need. But even then all the developers and creators must ensure sufficient checks and balances are in place to make sure that social balance prevails.

The single most important point every technological company working in the consumer segment on various apps, tech products and devices would love to have is more consumer attention and increase their daily active user and usage rate. In order to achieve it they need to build their products and services anything but addictive. How on earth are we going to ensure social balance which disrupts their core business element. That too, how can we expect these from large corporations that thrive on user data and usage time. Most of the tech products and services rely on network effects and more users using the products and services while generating terabytes of data which then gets mined for different reasons.

The premise of Web 3.0 is touted to be decentralized even while few of the large tech corporations control most of what is being done in the space. It’s paramount for the upcoming startups, the developer community at large and the users to voice out against these actionable items and questionable intentions.

We would even love to take up the mantle and start a special interest group if deemed necessary and have the quorum to collectively work on framing the right user interactions and intentions.

Let Technology serve at the behest of User welfare.