AR is probably the bigger threat to social interaction, allowing us to use our phones without even looking down.

VR lends itself more to MMORPG-like experiences, which are quite social. Similarly, Ready Player One didn't lack social interaction or real friendship.

For time spent in nature or making physical things it's probably the other way around. AR could make these things much more accessible (even if "less pure"), while VR doesn't exactly promote them.

AR will likely be a subset of VR enable by pass through. Check out https://varjo.com/products/xr-3/

Until we can perfectly simulate physical reality, virtual interactions will never be as real as real world interactions.

> virtual interactions will never be as real as real world interactions

I'm not quite sure what makes an interaction more or less "real". The people on both ends of the interaction are real, so surely if they interact that is a real interaction?

So far all virtual interactions lack some aspect of communication, but with full-body tracking and eye-tracking VR already offers the closest analog to face-to-face communication we have. Mapping all the tiny facial expressions will remain a challenge, but isn't really that far fetched.

Most of our screen time is spent working. 8+ hours staring at a screen is bad enough for our eyes and brains. Imagine how much worse it will be when that screen is an inch from your eyeballs. I highly doubt that VR will be replacing screens for anything but occasional recreation anytime soon.

I don't find there's too much difference between staring at a computer screen and using VR. VR headsets do provide a motivation to create displays that can allow your eyes to focus on closer or further objects though since they aim to reproduce reality and a big sticking point is the fixed focus nature of all current headsets. We'll have to see if there are any announcements at the next Connect event since they've been working on this technology https://uploadvr.com/half-dome-3-prime-time/