Miriam's VR post

I agree with the concept of VR being an “empathy machine” to some extent. I think that it makes experiences more real/personal, and it lets the people seeing it have these experiences that they would otherwise never have. Even though it’s obviously not real, I think something like this can help with empathy, since the viewer can sort of understand what it feels like to be in someone else’s shoes. Out of this week’s readings, my personal favorite was Clouds Over Sidra. Being taken on a “tour” of sorts of her home made it more real. We always hear about places like this in the news, but this made it more personal and more human. It brought the story to life more so than reading an article or seeing it on the news or in some other context. I think we could use interactive and immersive reading in positive ways in today’s society to help shed light on social justice issues. For example, we could figure out a way to use it to promote Black Lives Matter or to show people who don’t “believe” in COVID what it’s like to live in a poorer country that doesn’t have access to vaccines. On the other hand, although I do think that yes, interactive readings can help with empathy, you can never truly understand someone else’e experience, and that’s important to keep in mind. Even through seeing a certain event or lifestyle from someone else’s point of view, we can’t ever fully understand something that we ourselves haven’t dealt with. Overall though, I do believe that it has the potential to have positive effects on society as a whole.