Eliciting Empathy Through Virtual Reality

The first thing that most people think of when you say “virtual reality” would be video games. However, virtual reality has multiple other uses. As Chris Milk claims, it can even be viewed as an empathy machine. It is a mechanism for not just telling a story but immersing the reader within the story. The location, the people, the surroundings—all of these come to life when our senses are engaged. The ability to hear a person’s story while placing yourself in their shoes can help break down barriers to an empathetic world. As we see in Clouds Over Sidra, the reader has the ability to see things and hear things that might’ve never been mentioned had it been solely in a written format. The story of Sidra, a girl living in a refugee camp, comes to life. The ability to see the room full of boys on the computers, without a girl in sight, while also hearing Sidra share her story elicits strong emotions in the reader. We are sitting across from her in her house and hearing how this situation impacts her. That capability is one that has the power to change the world. Equally as captivating was Bashir’s Dream, in which we experience the story of Bashir, a boy who was shot by a sniper and is now in a wheelchair, but dreams of playing basketball. This story not only used real life imagery and audio narrative, it also used animation to give us a look at Bashir’s internal world. I think that Chris Milk was correct when he said virtual reality is an empathy machine. It has a way of connecting us to each other—our similarities become apparent and the world becomes a whole lot smaller. What would happen if we used virtual reality to bring awareness to other major societal issues—homelessness, poverty, racism? Perhaps we might change the world.