Virtual Reality: My New Bathroom Companion
As a small child, I always wondered why it took so long for my dad to finish using the bathroom. I wasn’t insanely interested in my dad’s bathroom habits, it was more of a passing curiosity, but it wasn’t until I was older that the reason he spent so much time in there was to escape. He worked some pretty long hours and then came home to two ADHD-riddled sons who couldn’t be bothered to worry about his day. So, I get it (now).
We all do this soft of thing, though. There’s no place better than the bathroom than to escape from the troubles of the world, especially now that we’re carrying around tiny entertainment machines with us. But now, I’ve found something that puts my phone’s powers of escapism to shame.
A few weeks ago, I took advantage of a deal that Google was putting on for the release of Star Wars Episode VII; and a free BB-8 Google Cardboard was soon at my door. The experience was surreal. Being my first time with anything related to virtual reality, I originally spent more than a few hours messing around until I eventually ending up with a pretty severe migraine that had me rushing to the bathroom for pleasant vomiting.
Recovery was swift and the virtual reality siren song was strong. I stayed in the bathroom (as a precaution) and was soon back in the streets of some far away land. Fortunately, my VR session was interrupted by my roommate looking to use the room. That’s how it all started.
In its current iteration, VR (or at least the low-end cardboard version) is best suited for short periods of adventure. That’s why my Google Cardboard sits next to the weeks-old magazine bin in my bathroom. Never used for more than a few minutes, I can sit in VR right on my throne. The bathroom forces short virtual reality sessions to take place, which in-turn, stops me from getting sick when I inevitably spend too much time in virtual worlds.
Anyone who’s read this far likely thinks I’ve decided to write about how much I love sitting in the bathroom, but it’s honestly not that different than what most of you are doing in there anyway. If you’re sitting on the toilet, you’ll probably pull out your phone. I’m doing the same thing, except I’m putting my phone into a cardboard viewer and either walking around Google Street View or watching the tons of 360-degree video on YouTube.
Now, if you could excuse me, I have somewhere to be.
