My Family Is Trapped in the Metaverse
Virtual reality isn’t great, but it’s a lot better than dealing with everything else out there….
On a whim, I recently started rewatching Ready Player One, the Steven Spielberg adaptation of Ernest Cline’s seminal novel about a future in which virtual reality is the real world. In the opening scene, protagonist Wade Watts clambers around a ramshackle trailer park before placing a headset on his face. Everyone has largely abandoned the decrepit, rundown reality for the Oasis—a virtual world of limitless possibilities, where everyone can do, be, or look like pretty much anything they want.
If you’d asked me if we were close to Ready Player One a year ago, I would’ve snorted and listed any of the objections my more skeptical colleagues have noted. However, on a recent Saturday afternoon, my husband put on the Meta Quest 2 VR headset to play Puzzling Places, a 3D puzzling game, while our children played with their stuffed animals and I sorted laundry.
After lunch, my 6-year-old daughter was allowed to spend a half-hour in Google’s Tilt Brush, a 3D drawing app where she created a frosty winter scene, complete with falling snow and snowmen named Lisa and Tom. My 4-year-old watched, enraptured, as the headset cast to the screen. After dinner, I caught my husband putting the headset on again. I told him to charge it when he was done because I was going to try a few new games with my coworker in an hour.
Being the parent of a still-unvaccinated 4-year-old, in the middle of a rainy Oregon winter, during a still-ongoing global pandemic, has sucked. My kids go to school and daycare, but to mitigate their risk, we have canceled swimming and gymnastics classes, and playdates. Virtual reality isn’t perfect, but it has allowed us to extend our lockdown indefinitely—until my son can be vaccinated. And also … I kind of like it?
A New Hope
It didn’t start out this way. I first got the Meta Quest 2 as a loaner in November, to try coworking with my colleagues and experiment with briefings. For work or relaxation, I found the headset utterly unsatisfying. If I want to meditate, I will take my dog on a walk; if I want to blow off steam, I go for a run. “The killer app is reality!” my husband crowed, as he saw the headset sit dusty and unused on my desk for about a month.
That was until Christmas, when both sides of my family visited and we reinstituted strict social distancing to protect older family members in the middle of the Omicron surge. Trapped in my house with no escape from all of my loved ones, I downloaded Puzzling Places one night. Meditative music plays as you manipulate small pieces of landmarks, clothes, and places in a 3D space around you. The satisfying click and glow as I put each small piece into its place was addictive.
I downloaded a few more games. Then a few more. Getting used to the headset didn’t come easy. The headset is much lighter and easier to use than older iterations, but it’s still heavy and awkward. Getting plopped down into empty space with no legs is still disorienting; I bought myself a big bag of the same ginger gummy chews I used to combat nausea during pregnancy.
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