Perry BI, Singh S. A virtual reality: Technology impact on youth mental health. Indian J Soc Psychiatry 2016;32:222-6

From Digital Culture & Society

[edit] "A Virtual Reality: Technology's Impact on Youth Mental Health"

The article “A Virtual Reality: Technology's Impact on Youth Mental Health” written by Benjamin Ian Perry and Swaran Singh is different from a lot of other articles about Virtual Reality. It goes more into detail about how the youth constantly surround themselves with technology and how that affects them. The authors delve into the culture surrounding technology and how it has changed over the years. Perry and Singh discussed the impacts social media has on children and their behavior. They debated both the advantages and disadvantages of technology. The biggest advantage being that VR can be used to help the youth. There are a lot of interesting topics in this article that is important to discuss, and these topics are the leading point to VRET (Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy).

Perry and Singh mention the amount of youth involved with technology, “A 2011 survey found that 95% of youngsters aged 12–17 use the internet, 81% have a social media account, and 51% admit to checking it daily.” This is a dramatic increase over the years as most activities nowadays involve the internet or some other form of technology. While the youth have been able to find information a lot quicker, Perry and Singh explained that today’s youth are not able to retain information compared to the past generations. This is likely due to the advancement in technology because there is no real need to remember information when it can be easily accessed at any time through the internet.

Perry and Singh also found that the increase of technology consumption might have changed the way people process emotions as youth have had a decrease in empathy. The combination of lacking empathy and surge of anonymity might be a core cause for cyber-bullying. “Furthermore, the large majority of young people simply do not know where to report cyber-bullying, which is alarming and may lead to increased feelings of isolation and helplessness.” This also correlates to another find that youth have developed more traits of psychopathy and narcissism. However, this seems to contradict another statement that youth have become more self-conscious and have decreased in self-esteem. With these statements, it seems that there may be two extremes ‘categories’ in youth: one being the egotistical side and the other being the insecure side. This could be a potential explanation of the severe social problems youth have with each other. Another major claim in the article was the increase or emergence of mental disorders. Many people are concerned with the blurring between the virtual world and reality as there has been an extreme increase in mental health problems. A lot of there problems can relate to technology or social media. Many people have become addictive to their online presence and there has been an extreme increase of depression and anxiety among youth. Likely due to the social pressure they face online from communication to feeling pressured by online norms. Many youths already feel compelled from the outside world as they are trying to find their identity, what career they want to pursue, family matters and school. It would be tremendously hard for them to have to also face these issues online.

Luckily, there are a lot of positives to technology and social media. Many people can find support and a sense of belonging from social media sites. A new culture of online personalities has been able to offer advice to those who need it and have built a community for them to belong. “It is well known that young people may relate better with peers, which may help to explain the popularity of online blogging/vlogging mental health personalities such as Claire Greaves (Mental Illness Talk), Charlotte Walker (purplepersuasion), and John Folk-Williams (Storied Mind).” There are also many online outlets for people to acquire help if they need it and it is mostly anonymous so they person won’t feel embarrassed about their position.

Nowadays, there is VRET. VRET has become increasingly popular for its use in mental health. There are many benefits to using VRET over regular exposure therapy. It is cost-effective, customizable for certain disorders, time effective and usually available anywhere. “Early adopters of the technology in psychiatric research have found positive results in the treatment of a range of psychiatric conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder, phobias, addictions, eating disorders, psychoses, and even social-skills training for youngsters with an autistic spectrum disorder.” However, there is the question of should be used? From all the problems discussed, it seems weird to use technology to solve problems that may be caused by it. Would it be better to use regular therapy, so youth rely more on other people than technology? It is a subject up for debate and both sides will have valid arguments. I believe if it can help anyone then it is worth the risk to try. However, VRET still requires a lot more study and improvements for it to be always effective to treat individuals.