Virtual & Augmented Reality

As Virtual Reality (VR — immersive headsets that replace your view of the world with a computer-generated one, from consumer devices in 2012 onward, with Facebook's 2014 $2 billion acquisition of Oculus) and Augmented Reality (AR — technology that overlays digital images on the real world, via Google Glass in 2013 and the smartphone hit Pokémon GO in July 2016) moved into everyday use, brief moral panics flared and fizzled. Early Google Glass wearers, who sported a camera-equipped computer on their faces, were dubbed "Glassholes" and banned from bars, casinos and strip clubs over privacy concerns. Pokémon GO, a game that sent players chasing virtual creatures across real-world locations, triggered an unprecedented wave of complaints when those locations turned out to include cemeteries, busy roads and private property. The Holocaust Museum, Arlington National Cemetery and Auschwitz all issued public requests for players to stay away, and studies found an uptick in traffic incidents near the game's in-world landmarks (PokéStops). Commentators warned of VR-induced detachment from reality, "virtual infidelity" via avatars, and assorted psychological harms. Facebook's October 2021 rebrand to Meta — a bet that a headset-based virtual world called the "metaverse" would be the next computing platform — briefly reignited alarm, though the hype, and the panic, collapsed within two years. Apple's Vision Pro launched in 2024 to modest sales and a muted reception. Compared with the other panics on this timeline, the AR/VR moral convulsion largely never arrived. These technologies turned out to be less culturally disruptive, and less widely adopted, than their critics feared.