But This Time It's Different
Tony Liao · 2024
The emergence of augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technologies is an important part of the mobile media debate. As headworn or handheld mobile devices that can visually display change people’s perception of the world, people are both excited and concerned about the effects of these technologies and what users could do with the technology. Given that those debates are ongoing and will continue with each iteration of augmented and virtual reality technology, this chapter explores some of the major claims being debated, examines what we currently know from presence literature, embodiment/interactivity theories, and health intervention literature, and identifies areas where we still need more research to reconcile inconclusive/conflicting results as well as explore some new areas entirely. This chapter advances some initial mappings of these debates to hopefully allow people to understand where and how these arguments are being made about media effects, and also delves into questions of cognition, consciousness, and identity in AR/VR environments. Drawing on existing examples of sexual violence/harassment in VR as well as unique contexts such as VR workplace avatars, this chapter pulls apart some of the underlying logics for why people make the claims they do regarding the extent/severity of VR effects and how we should treat questions of identity in VR.