Addiction

From Etica_wiki

Another possible infringement of autonomy is caused by the risk of addiction to VR. VR offers humanity with a way to escape the hassles and troubles of every day and spend some time in fantasy world. As VR capabilities improve this escapism may turn out to be too addictive of our own good becoming as addictive, energy-sapping, and intellect-dulling as television (Blitz, 2008).

The question then arises whether people have a right to deceive themselves by spending most of their time in a virtual world and whether government has a right to intervene as does by addiction to drugs. There is however an important difference between addiction to VR and to drugs. Contrary to drug use, VR does not directly alter one‘s brain chemistry or physiological functioning (Blitz, 2008). As stated above, the way the brain operates might be influenced indirectly as result of the input it receives from VR tools. As the potential dark sides of VR are still largely unknown, government paternalism itself may in many cases involve a greater infringement of personal autonomy than VR might cause.

One of the key concerns in the future may involve the social ramifications due to chronic use or "addiction" to VR, at the expense of involvement in the real world and relationships with real persons (Rizzo, 2003). As the experiences offered by VR are rich enough, people might find it impossible to resist spending increasing amounts of time in VR environments. Consequently this will deplete their "drive to fulfill responsibilities and carry important burdens in their family and community life." (Blitz, 2008)