Virtual Worries

By Jaron Lanier

Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in the development of virtual reality and the man who coined the term, lives in New York City. This sidebar is adapted from his remarks at ITTE's 1994 Technology + Learning Conference in Dallas.

Educators often raise several specific issues about virtual reality and children. One issue is whether very young children should use virtual reality at all.

I would say not. It's important for kids to develop fully their sensory motor skills in the physical world first. So I wouldn't like to see toddlers running around in virtual reality--an issue that will heat up when doing so becomes economically feasible.

I don't know what a child would be like if the child had access to virtual reality from a very young age and was able to adapt to it at the same time as learning the physical world. The child might well grow up with a different set of patterns and perhaps different physical control of the body, so I'd rather not play with it. Virtual reality, like any technology, has to be used in a measured way.

Another concern I'm especially sensitive about has to do with the assumption that virtual reality attempts to create a synthetic universe. That assumption is false. Our goal is to help kids connect to one another, to communicate. Virtual reality must be understood as a communication tool, not as a tool for creating an alternative world that would stand on its own.

Teachers are especially worried that someone will make synthetic teachers that would walk around in virtual reality and teach kids. I'm vehemently opposed to the attempt to create artificial people or, in fact, any artificially freestanding world.

The problem with making artificial teachers or artificial intelligence in general is that you can't tell how much the users adapt to the system to make the system look smart. To put it another way, you don't know to what degree people are becoming dumb to make the computer look smart--so you never know if you've actually made any progress. I present that argument just briefly because computer research used to be so strongly inclined toward making artificial intelligence, a direction I oppose.

Another issue is whether virtual reality has the potential to become addictive or lead to a reclusive tendency in children, who would stay inside it and not relate to people in the physical world. Based on my experience so far, I believe that there is no such danger at all.

The reason: It takes a lot of work to be in virtual reality.

If you just sit down in virtual reality and space out, the effect goes away, and you're just looking at some computer images that are inferior to television. For the world to come alive and feel real, you must be active.

Like riding a bicycle, using virtual reality is inherently a vigorous physical activity. Kids who use virtual reality get tired after a while and have to stop. That's the hardest thing to remember about virtual reality, because most uses of computers are more mental than physical. The physical aspect of virtual reality is healthy--and it's self-limiting.