Blog 9

     I think that the use of virtual reality and immersive experience has the potential to be very beneficial to storytelling. In terms of Clouds over Sidra, it was extremely powerful. I think that when people are listening to a story, they imagine a version of their own story. The problem is their imagination is entirely based off of their own life experiences. Imagination is limited by your own brain and your way of viewing things. But, oftentimes when listening to a story, it is very unrelatable to your own personal experiences or you have never experienced what the person is talking about. For example, when it comes to war, I can imagine based on movies, TV, stories, and textbooks I can imagine my best version of what war looks like. But, because I have never experienced it, my imagination of it is probably nothing compared to what it actually is. I think that people are able to stay sheltered and stay in their bubble when they can pick how to imagine certain things. If people truly were able to see the extent of the pollution in the ocean, the poverty in some cities, or war ect. I am sure people would be so much more passionate and horrified about some of the issues going on in the world. That is why I think VR and immersive experiences are so important to storytelling and to education in general. It can bring such a powerful emotion and a powerful image to a story and totally transform someone's take on a story. That being said, I think that the term "empathy machine" is very interesting and accurate. I think that quite literally it is a machine that generates a great amount of empathy and feelings, making the written word seem like it has not nearly as much power. It almost brings the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words" to light as very true.