Changes in Relationships

Uses and Trends:

When it comes to relationships, virtual reality appears to be the future of meeting new people. Today in its early stages, virtual reality has a few platforms where people can meet and communicate in an immersive environment. The most popular place for this today is VR Chat. VR chat is available to anyone with VR technology. It allows you to choose an avatar and wander around in various virtual worlds that you can interact with. In these worlds, you will stumble across other VR Chat users and are free to communicate with them with the built in microphone in the headset.

VR Chat can be seen as a form of anonymous social media that you get to be immersed in. The anonymity factor about it allows people to be their true, unfiltered selves. The creators of the videos below recored their VR Chat sessions. The videos are like a type of journalism. In one video, a kid opens up to two people he met on VR Chat about how he was bullied in the real world and had a hard time growing up. In the second video, someone goes around and talks to people about their biggest regrets in life. VR Chat allows people to develop more interpersonal relationships, blow off steam and meet a variety of new people without having to leave their homes.

Disruptive Impact:

With applications like VR Chat, virtual reality has potential to disrupt social media/dating apps. Talking with someone in virtual reality is as close as you can get to talking with them in person. People value face-to-face communication, which would make VR a more desirable way to communicate and meet people online. VR will allow people to converse and see hand gestures and other body movement that will feel more authentic than communicating through text or phone calls.

Predictions:

I predict that applications like VR Chat will evolve and begin to feel even more real. I think that avatars will improve and realistically represent what you may look like. This will ultimately lead to a form of social media that is fully based around virtual reality, similar to MMO type games like World of Warcraft, but designed to meet new people, hang out with friends, or even network. VR will bring people together like never before. It will be easier than ever to meet new people as well as virtually build the strong relationships that you could really only build in person.