Virtual Reality (VR): A policy tool for impacting change?

To describe last week’s class as interesting is an understatement. One of the highlights was visiting the House of VR to evoke empathy and think about its use as a policy tool in community based policy making. It was an overwhelming, cool and unsettling experience. I have previously experienced VR using the Google cardboard viewers as well as using the tilt brush (painting in VR) but none of the content has been socially focused in any way.

I had the opportunity to watch two amazing, thought-provoking documentaries: Cut-Off and Clouds Over Sidra. Despite being familiar with Indigenous issues on reserves and the global refugee crisis, this was an uncomfortable experience. Both the documentaries placed me (through the VR headsets) in very unfamiliar situations and portrayed issues within communities through the lens of community members. Even though it was their point of view, their story, their life, I felt like an outsider, an intruder being exposed to surface level issues.

VR is a great tool for education and storytelling. Going to the depths of oceans we have not seen and or going into outer space may be very cool to explore using VR. There are endless possibilities. But I am not fully convinced about the use of the VR as a policy tool. Being immersed in a 360 degree format can allow the user to be integrated into the story, but it is important to remember that the viewer is still an observer and drawing conclusions based on spending a few minutes integrated into a community virtually can be problematic.

Showing people world views we normally don’t encounter through VR documentaries may not be the best way to evoke empathy. VR experiences cannot help users fully understand how life is like in a refugee camp or a remote Indigenous reserve. It almost seems like the easy way out. As my friend Sasha mentioned, we need to engage and interact with humans based within communities to begin to understand some of the challenges they encounter. Can greater compassion and empathy be fostered in audiences through VR? Perhaps yes, but I am unsure of VR’s potential as a policy tool for impacting change. I am all for creative tools to inspire change. But it shouldn’t take cool gadgets and trendy tech for people to care about human rights violations, broken systems and policies.