Just the Facts, 5%.

Name Evelyne Uk

**Be as detailed as possible. Do not rush your answers.***

.
Use academic and non-academic sources (search the web)

The more information you gather the better prepared you will be
to locate, read and understand the scholarly sources.

1. What is the social problem related to technology you would be interested in writing about?
- Virtual reality and how users might find it helpful or find it progresses into alienation socially as
it is used in the healthcare sector.

2. Why did you choose this social problem?

- I chose this social problem because I find it interesting to see society progress into a progressively
more virtual world. As the new Apple Vision Pro just came out, I have seen people dissociate
from real life and they enter their world where they have technology around them 24 hours a day.
It is interesting to me how technology like virtual reality can absorb the full attention of a person. I
want to find out if these VR technologies can harm or benefit a person’s human behaviour. By
using it in the healthcare system, there must be a feeling of attachment as it is used to help patients
heal or help them mentally.

3. Is this issue related to a specific society? Country? Group of people? If so, where? Who?
- This issue isn’t related to any society in particular; however, I will be focusing on the use of VR in
the United States, mostly in the field of the healthcare sector from users like doctors to patients to
students.

4. List at least 3 facts you found about this social problem (with their sources).
- The use of virtual reality is used in healthcare by doctors to better their understanding of how and
what their patients are going through. Therefore, psychologically, doctors are learning to feel
empathetic for their patients. https://www.uschamber.com/technology/how-virtual-reality-is-
transforming-healthcare
- Augmented or virtual reality can be used to help students learn how the human body functions.
For example, they visualize the brain in 3D with a VR helmet. By analyzing human anatomy their
comprehension of medical care is less invasive than using a cadaver. https://visualise.com/virtual-
reality/virtual-reality-healthcare
- Virtual reality can be used to treat many illnesses for example phantom limb pain. Which is when
you have an amputated limb and pain occurs occasionally. With VR you can imagine the limb
being there again making the pain go away. Virtual reality can help mentally by creating a new
reality where things that you would like to help you feel better. https://jelvix.com/blog/virtual-
reality-in-healthcare

5. Write the research question you would be interested in exploring.

- How does the use of virtual reality or augmented reality affect the psychological state of users in
the healthcare realm?

6. Create a list of different aspects/perspectives/angles you would like to consider when

investigating your chosen social problem (at least 2-3).
- From the point of view of doctors and healthcare workers who use VR or AR but who also
observe their patients use it.
- From the point of view of students in medical studies who use VR or AR to learn about human
anatomy and its use in the future.
- From the point of view of patients who use the tools and how it has affected them psychologically.

7. What is the general, or popular, understanding of your issue in mainstream media? Is it an

issue often discussed or often sidelined? Why?
- I believe that this issue is on the rise in popularity. With the new technologies being developed,
virtual reality headsets are changing and getting better every year. Every time the tool is improved
the more people feel like its use is better. For example, the headsets are getting less heavy making
it more comfortable to wear them for multiple hours a day. This efficiency is making the users
more prone to buying them. However, the part of psychological damage is often neglected. Since
it is fairly new to the market, users don’t know the possible consequences in the long-term not
only for the way our brain develops but also for how human behaviour will change after multiple
uses.

8. Related to question 7: Is there social or political tension surrounding your chosen issue? If
so, describe it.
- The social tension would be centred around the fact that AR and VR could reduce social
interactions and make learning in the medical field less ready for the real world and various
realistic situations. Being alienated may cause trouble in the medical professional field as they
often work in teams.

9. What three Social Science Disciplines do you think will provide the best, most informative
and appropriate scholarly sources for your research? Go on Dawson library website, do a
search and see which discipline seems to have the highest number of articles related to your
topic. Pick one scholarly article ( a different one from last activity and in a different
discipline). What is the article about and why do you think it is associated with that Social
Science discipline?
- Psychology: This article is about the way humans interact with each other and how it is essential
for us to have relationships and contact with others. They believe that technology has helped
society be more social, for instance with social media people are able to communicate with others.
They also believe that physical touch is important therefore, virtual reality is the solution to this
problem. With VR there is the option to talk to others and physically see them in 3D. It is
associated with that social science because of its research on human behaviour which is part of
psychology studies. They study why communication and loneliness are linked to virtual reality
and how it could help.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.795283/full
- Education: This article talks about how VR and AR have been used in the context of an
educational purpose in the field of nursing and paramedics. They found that VR was helpful when
teaching these students how to go through disaster situations and emergencies, etc, since it has an
immersive experience and has a more realistic expectation of this field of work. This article is
associated with the discipline of education because virtual reality is entering this field slowly but
surely. Indeed, it is why people should be wondering if it is advantageous or not.
https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:3525/eds/pdfviewer/pdwfviewer?vid=8&sid=8c7650b4-16ba-
4176-9d87-53411b9611fc%40redis
- Complementary and Alternative Medicine: This article is a study on med students who are
studying ways of doing an operation. Two groups are made to see which group has a higher stress
level when having a normal study approach while the other uses a virtual reality technique. This
article is associated with the discipline of complementary and alternative medicine because it is
about how virtual reality can be helped in the medical field and the future doctors that will take
over. https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2137/article/228feccf878548e2a27227eae3baf9e4

10. What websites/sources did you use to find the information for this assignment?
 (should be at least 3-4 different sites minimum and give me the titles of the websites and the
URLs)

- WebMD, https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/virtual-reality-medicine
- JMIR Plubications, https://mental.jmir.org/2021/9/e29681/
- Springer Link, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-11432-
8_21#:~:text=VR%20has%20facilitated%20the%20researchers,perception%2C%20and%20proble
m%20solving%20etc.