As you like, I recently started watching again Ready Player OneSteven Spielberg’s adaptation Miracle Novels by Ernest Cline about a future in which virtual reality To be the real world. In the opening scene, protagonist Wade Watts walks around a ramshackle trailer park before putting the headset to his face. People have largely given up on spoiled, crumbling reality for Oasis—a virtual world of limitless possibilities where anyone can do, be, or look like whatever they want.
If you ask me if we are close to Ready Player One a year ago, I snorted and listed any objections my more skeptical colleagues note. However, on a recent Saturday afternoon, my husband gave Meta Quest 2 VR Headset play Confusing placea confusing 3D game, while our kids play with their stuffed animals and I sort the laundry.
After lunch, my 6-year-old daughter is allowed to spend half an hour at Google’s Tilt Brush, a 3D drawing app, where she created a frigid winter scene, complete with falling snow and a snowman named Lisa and Tom. My 4-year-old was enthralled watching as the headphones streamed to the screen. After dinner, I caught my husband wearing headphones again. I told him to charge it when he finished because I will be trying out some new games with my co-workers in an hour.
As the parent of a 4-year-old still unvaccinatedin the middle of Oregon’s winter it rains, while it’s still ongoing global pandemic, has smoked. My kids go to school and daycare, but to reduce the risk to them we’ve canceled swimming, gymnastics and play sessions. Virtual reality isn’t perfect, but it has allowed us to extend the downtime indefinitely — until my son can be vaccinated. And besides… I like it?
A new hope
It didn’t start this way. The first time I received Meta Quest 2 as a lender in November, to try working with my colleagues and experiment with briefings. For work or relaxation, I found the headset to be completely unsatisfactory. If I wanted to meditate, I would walk the dog; If I want to relax, I run away. “The killer app is real!” exclaimed my husband, when he saw the dusty and unused headphones on my desk for about a month.
That was until Christmas, when both sides of my family came to visit and we re-established strict social distancing to protect older family members amid the Omicron surge. Trapped in my house and with no way out from all my loved ones, I downloaded Confusing place one night. Meditation music plays as you manipulate small pieces of landmarks, clothing, and places in 3D around you. The satisfying click and glow as I put each little piece in its place is addictive.
I have downloaded a few more games. Then a few more. Getting used to headphones is not easy. Headphones are much lighter and easier to use than repeat older, but it’s still heavy and awkward. Plunging into the void without legs is still disorienting; I bought myself a big bag of ginger gummies that I used to use to combat nausea during pregnancy.
