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All the rich Zuckerbergs and like-minded tech partners in the world are convinced that the future is that we all live, love, and work on a virtual reality “metavers”. But the findings of a new study suggest that working in virtual reality will not increase a worker’s productivity, comfort, or well-being. In fact, quite the opposite.
As detected by PC Gamer, a research team at Coburg University in Germany conducted an experiment. People gathered 16 people, 10 men and 6 women, and made them work for a week on VR using basic Oculus Quest 2 VR desktop and headset configurations. The results of this one-week study were published in an article entitled “Quantifying the Effects of Working in a RV for a Week.” Very sticky!
The one-week study suggests that working in virtual reality seems to reduce productivity and can also cause migraines.
Participants worked seven days in virtual reality, with 45-minute lunch breaks, and were asked several times throughout the day to evaluate their virtual reality experience compared to working in a normal office and the world. real through 10 statistics, including perceived productivity, frustration, and well-being. , and anxiety. Participants were also asked specific questions related to virtual reality, such as whether they felt sick or began to have sore eyes. The research team also monitored heartbeat and writing speed.
It turns out that study participants felt they had more work to do than in a normal office and felt more anxious and stressed as they tried to do their job in virtual reality. This resulted in a 14% drop in self-described productivity, with “frustration” increasing by more than 40% compared to the baseline. All of this contributed to a general decline in mental well-being. And, as expected, participants experienced an increase in eye fatigue, visual fatigue, nausea, and migraines as a result of spending so much time in virtual reality.
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In fact, two people had to drop out of the study due to frequent migraines and high levels of frustration, nausea, and disorientation before the end of the first day of the study.
Read more: The metavers is already here for the cows and is very sad
To be clear, this is just a study in a field that is still quite young. In fact, one of the main objectives behind its realization was to provide data on which future researchers could rely for further research on the subject.
Some may be inclined to blame the negative findings on the hardware / software used by the study, which included the Chrome Remote Desktop and the commercial budget virtual reality headset, but the paper explains that the researchers deliberately used the average technology as it gets closer to yours. average desktop experience. And look, if the future is the metavers, it should work for everyone with all budgets, not just for wealthy people who can afford $ 3,000 PCVR installations.
But yes, overall, this is not great news for the Zucks. Finally, here is the conclusion of the document research team:
Overall, this study helps lay the groundwork for further research, highlighting current shortcomings and identifying opportunities to enhance the experience of working in RV. We hope that this work will stimulate further research to investigate long-term productive work in situ in RV.