Two weeks ago, I felt a childhood rush of excitement for cardboard. When the Google Cardboard viewer from the New York Times arrived on my doorstep, I tore open its blue plastic packaging, downloaded the NYT VR app on my phone, and set myself up for some quality virtual reality viewing time.
After playing around with the app for a couple of minutes, I packaged the viewer back up, put it on my bookshelf and went out to brunch. I hadnāt even made it through a 1:44 minute-long video before setting it aside and going about my regularly scheduled life. Despite a desire to engage with this new piece of technology, I refused to pause my life to learn about someone elseās. My selfishness trumped my curiosity. Call me a millennial.
I like to think thereās a deep-seated wisdom of the other at the core of my being. Having been connected since adolescence to a wealth of information on the World Wide Web, my perspective is inherently broader than my parents. Even if this were true, thereās still an all-consuming resistance to empathize with others. Selfies, vanity, and egoism run rampant. Could the NYT VR mobile app save us from ourselves? Is virtual reality the harbinger of The Empathy Era?
A part of me hopes it is. I want to believe in the promise of the New York Times virtual reality app to transport me to another place. I see potential in it to free me from myself. Itās a lot to expect from folded cardboard.
I finally got to watch the full eleven minutes of The Displaced last week. Naturally, I was disappointed when I didnāt feel āpresent in these vivid locations, a virtual witness to these childrenās precarious lives,ā like Jake Silverstein, Editor of The New York Times Magazine, wrote.
While watching the virtual reality film, my phone dinged with text messages. Halfway through the video, while Hana was telling me about cucumber picking in Lebanon, I got a call from a friend (this doesnāt happen often).
āWhy didnāt you respond to my text?ā
āIām watching a video.ā
āOkay, well can you answer me?ā
āDo you think I can make it in New York?ā
āYes. I already said you should move here. Anyway, Iām watching a videoā¦ā
āOkay, can I call you later today and we talk?ā
She never called me later that day.
Shutting down one of the first verbal exchanges over the phone Iāve had with my closest childhood friend in over a year, I returned to my virtual reality film so I could empathize with others: really put myself in their shoes.
As I twirled around my room with the Google Cardboard viewer pressed against my face, I followed three children through their struggles as refugees in a war-stricken world.
When the video finished, I didnāt feel transported; I felt displaced. Instead of feeing like a part of Olegās world, I felt removed from mine.
As seen on:Ā https://medium.com/@turkishdlite/the-empathy-era-b758d1e1f7a7#.kckry8hbk
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