Over at Children's Colorado and they are also trying out VR for pediatric pain management. It seems to be effective thus far.
VR's killer app may well be Alyx, but there are a lot of potential uses that are out there that can really help out.
The only time I hit the ground was when I tried to go into a crouch and had the floor height misconfigured. That left a mark.
Kidding aside, it does seem like VR probably has value as a kind of exposure therapy..
Likewise, if you have a fear of spiders bad enough that it interferes with your quality of life, you likely want to be desensitized to spiders.
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/16/technology/fearless-vr-spid...
But a regular and 'by design' aspect of a game, presumably online?
Dunno if I, as an arachnophobe who plays plenty of games online-trust griefers not to ....well grief with that kind of power, heh.
A multi-player spider game sounds potentially terrifying.
I would agree that VR can help with PTSD, but only in the same way as drugs can help with disease. Doesn't mean to say that drugs don't also cause huge problems.
The devil, as always, is in the details and life is not simple.
Weird, this study shows the exact opposite with regards to regular video games.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6370668/
Conclusion from above study:
>Accumulating evidence led to a clear consensus that a high frequency of exposure to violent video games significantly alters important interpersonal behaviors in negative ways (Bender et al., 2018). Atypical disadvantageous defensive reactions and higher vulnerability to PTSD symptoms, revealed in the present study, add to other shortcomings for the heavy players themselves.
I would assume the same in VR, if not more significant as it is more immersive than regular video games.
I do not have a study for VR video games however as I do not know of any that have been done off the top of my head.
I would like to add, I by no means want to make light of the impact PTSD due to real life trauma. I personally know a few people who suffer from being in active combat and would never wish that upon anyone.
I personally feel that PTSD developed due to real life trauma will always be far more severe than any sort of PTSD developed through video games or other virtual means.
From the discussion:
> Non-players exhibited an immobility-like reaction.
> Heavy players behaved as if “jumping the gun”, increasing mobilization, instead of immobilizing and waiting for the best chance to get rid from danger.
> Indeed, “... the simple sight of a weapon increases the likelihood of aggression if the person has mentally paired a weapon such as a gun with killing or hurting people...” [Anderson and Warburton (2012), p. 72].
> This is the case for heavy players of violent video games who are frequently exposed to weapon use for the purpose of killing and hurting others.
The authors are trying to say video games provoked more violent reactions. Well, to me it sounds like video games have educational value: players immediately recognized the danger represented by the weapon and reacted more aggressively. Did the non-players freeze because they did not know how to react to the danger?
Their arguments don't seem to be specific to video games. It seems to be about exposure to weapons in general. It's not clear what this result means. Games trained players to respond differently but is that good or bad? Does this mean players are less likely to survive violent encounters? Does this mean players will defend themselves more effectively? How do people who went through real firearms training respond in the same conditions? I don't know.
The PTSD stuff is also deceptive:
> Scores on the PCL-C hyperarousal cluster were also significantly higher for heavy players (Z = -2.08, p = 0.04).
That's the only significant difference. Emotional numbing, avoidance and recollections were not present. Hyperarousal includes symptoms like imsomnia, irritability, anxiety... The potential for confusion here is significant.
There's no way this particular study establishes any causal relationships.
While not PTSD, I can totally imagine you can find ways of using VR to cause PTSD or similar. Like forcing someone to have a VR headset on with disturbing experiences for a long time and the person would surely eventually go insane.
VR definitely triggers more areas in the brain than just a monitor as I can empathize very well with the feeling you describe. Supposedly fans modified Alien: Isolation to work with VR. THERE'S NO WAY I'M TOUCHING THAT. Subnautica VR is "bad" enough :)
The controllers are pretty much useless. Your hand shakes a little and suddenly the yoke is at 90 degrees deflection because there is no resistance.
Rizzo thinks you can't because it doesn't seem real, not because there's no actual danger. Make it seem real enough, and their point doesn't stand anymore.
The Popsci article says there are no studies pointing one way or the other.
The CNN article only talks about PTSD in a quote from Google's Daydream View saying it can cause it.
The Quora answers are interesting, but still hardly support that strong claim, they're at most an educated guess.
In all seriousness though – is there any studies done on potential PTSD-like effects that arise from this sort of VR game?