A miserable work week spent toiling inside 'the metaverse'

Sometimes it takes research to prove what was already suspected, like how utterly uncomfortable it would be to work in the metaverse. An international team of researchers conducted a study [PDF] to just such an end, putting participants in VR headsets and taking an inventory of their self-reported physical and mental states …

[Anonymous Coward]

But... but... but...

... I've seen Minority Report - surely all you have to do is stand in front of a VR screen, swipe your arm in a dramatic gesture from right to left and your day's work is done?

[Icon: warning sticker to stop you walking into a screen you can't see!]

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: But... but... but...

That was my thought. Unless there is a fundamental shift in how we input data it's not going to work. Tapping a keyboard in AI is pointless. Maybe machine learning and upping it to words? Even so it's not going to work or will be many many years off and even then we would all have to be the same.

[doublelayer]

Re: But... but... but...

I think it could still work, as long as the VR added something else and didn't mess with the keyboard. For example, if it could create some really large and clear monitors (it can't, the resolution isn't high enough) or if it could reliably simulate others' presence (it theoretically could, but they keep failing to do it according to every review I've seen). Since it's not doing any of that and it does interfere with the keyboard experience (presumably just for those who look at the keyboard while typing), it doesn't seem to have much of a selling point for office work. My guess is that it's never going to.

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: But... but... but...

My guess is that it's never going to.

VR is, always has been, and always will be, a gimmick. It's that classic "solution looking for a problem". Whilst there might be edge-use cases for things like 3D visualisation in design jobs that need such things, it's still a much more expensive alternative to the perfectly good solution of a 2D projection on a monitor. It's not like there isn't design software that handles this well already, and much of this software is free and open-source (like Blender).

As I get older, it's bad enough having to wear glasses to do screen work for prolonged periods. For calls, I use a comfortable gaming headset, and I wouldn't dream of wearing it for one minute longer than I need to,

However, a VR headset is an order of magnitude more clunky than these things combined, it cuts you off from your immediate environment in a way that a headset does not.

Sci-fi films and TV like to have fancy 3D projections in thin air that people can just wave their hands through. If the "metaverse" as like this, then it might be tolerable. The problem here, of course, if that what is possible in films is not possible in real life, and 3D holographic projections not only do not exist, they do not follow the established laws of physics, so bad luck there.

It's conceivable that there might be some use for an AR solution with images on a transparent screen in front f the user's face that has a decent enough resolution, refresh rate, and head tracking to not cause nausea, but once again, what's the actual "killer app"?

Ever since the advent of "virtual reality" in the '90s, people have been trying to both make it work, and find a use for it. Here we are 30 or so years later, and where are we? No further along, but watching Mark Zuckerberg throw his ill-gotten gains at it.

[iron]

Re: But... but... but...

Digital twins, management demos, various medical and engineering uses, etc. Watch some of the videos form Microsoft Build 2021, they showed real uses of VR / Metaverse not just twats, sorry execs, harassing each other round a virtual water cooler.

It still is useless for the vast majority of workers though.

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: But... but... but...

I've sat through a "metaverse" presentation (aimed at devs) from Microsoft. Yes, it "looks cool", but the "real-life" example they were pushing, of being able to virtually inspect a 3D model of an industrial plant (with real-time presentation of state presumably based on edge computing sensors) showed nothing that could not be done in 2D on a screen, with a 3D projection, if necessary (to see where in the plant the blinking light is, for example).

Medical uses? Well, yes maybe for medical imaging, or "telepresence", but TBH, there's nothing there that I can think of that can't be shown on a monitor that could be shown in a VR headset, in the same way that there's nothing you can see in real life that you can't take a photo of. At a push, stereoscopic "3D" screens exist, with plastic glasses, if you need to see depth, in the same way there was a craze for "3D" movies about ten years ago. I certainly wouldn't want to be operated on by someone who isn't physically present in the OR. What's an acceptable lag, or disconnect timeout when a spurting artery needs cauterising?

The question to be asked, for each use case they come up with, is whether it can't just as easily be done, more cheaply and simply, on a monitor, which can have the added advantage of being in a decent resolution (I doubt any VR headsets are 4K or have high refresh rates like an equivalently priced monitor). Plus, you don't have to do the workplace equivalent of the kids in Knightmare and walk around with a bin on your head.

[Alumoi]

Re: But... but... but...

It's conceivable that there might be some use for an AR solution with images on a transparent screen in front f the user's face that has a decent enough resolution, refresh rate, and head tracking to not cause nausea, but once again, what's the actual "killer app"?

Porn!?!

[HelpfulJohn]

Re: But... but... but...

One of he most credible bits of the movie "Timecop" was the geeky worker's use of VR.

[the Jim bloke]

Re: But... but... but...

Unless there is a fundamental shift in how we input data it's not going to work

This is zuckerbergs secret key to success.

Facebook has already collected all the data, so no need for any new inputs.

Any concept of bringing new stuff in - except through a multi-billion dollar project controlled by Meta - is crazy subversive talk, needing to be stamped out swiftly and decisively.

The other surveillance-capitalism powerhouses will be happy enough to imitate the model - you wont notice the absence of choices if the wallpaper is pretty enough.

[pip25]

Re: But... but... but...

Ah, Minority Report UX. That was a sad mess even before VR. Leap Motion came out with hardware that can track your hand movements - but it turned out that swiping your hand in front of a screen for any meaningful amount of time is just incredibly awkward and tiring! Perhaps metaverse developers should take note...

[HelpfulJohn]

Re: But... but... but...

*Any* repetitive motion is extremely tiring and damaging if you do it for eight or twelve hours per shift. Even the recliners and tappy screens that featured as "futuristic tech" on the TV serial "Star Trek: The Next Generation" would induce severe back strain, R.S.I. and other injuries eventually.

The hot-desk, standing-up work spaces there were worse.

[RichardBarrell]

Re: But... but... but...

The screens in Minority Report are more like AR than VR, so it's not surprising that the results fail to generalise from one situation to the other. ;)

[fidodogbreath]

Disembodied business casual

Some of the participants' unease might have been from seeing their colleagues as legless floating torsos.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Disembodied business casual

I frequently visualise some colleagues as disembodied floating torsos

And me with a chainsaw

[ShadowSystems]

Re: Disembodied business casual

You use a chainsaw? Well la-dee-dah. Mister Hoy Polloy gets to use the power tools for their dismemberment fantasies. The rest of us plebs have to make do with a sharpened rusty spoon & a whole lot of elbow grease.

It must be nice being rich enough to afford actual power tools. What's it like, Mister Posher-Than-Thou? =-)p

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Disembodied business casual

A rusty spoon? Luxury.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Disembodied business casual

When I were a lad, we had to imagine gnawing our colleagues' limbs off for our dismemberment fantasies. And they hadn't washed, either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Disembodied business casual

Some of the participants' unease might have been from seeing their colleagues as legless floating corpses.

[Spasticus Autisticus]

Re: Disembodied business casual

Reminds me of Floaty Blood Man in Rick and Morty - Tickets please.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdkFX4CeMa4

[Pascal Monett]

Eye strain and nausea

I already heard about that when Quake came out.

Doesn't happen to me, but that doesn't mean I'm a fan of VR. I'm not.

What bothers me with VR is having a headset when I have two gorgeous 26"+ screens sitting on my desktop.

What bothers me is that I am already perfectly immersed in today's games (7 Days to Die is unbelievable).

I don't need to shackle myself with a kilogram of poor performance to watch Nintendo-style graphics , thank you very much.

[Tomato42]

Re: Eye strain and nausea

That sounds more like a Quest problem than a VR problem.

You should try Arizona Sunshine with a non-potato PC and a decent headset.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Eye strain and nausea

I've found New Mexico sunshine and no headset at all works just fine for me.

[xyz123]

Anyone posting anti-VR stories needs to declare if they themselves have any conflict of interest (Monitor manufacturers have previously paid to put out all sorts of "VR will kill your cat" type nonsense.

[Pascal Monett]

Oh, so the positive-VR posts don't ?

[Gerhard den Hollander]

Eye strain

Having to wear monitors a few inches from your eye will always cause eyestrain after a while.

Your eyes need to unfocus regularly.

One of the biggest helps combating eyestrain when working from home the last few years was putting a little gap between 2 of the monitors so I can gaze out through the window behind into the distance without even having to turn my head.

Doesn't matter that the view is just the street.

[Muscleguy]

Re: Eye strain

As a Biologist I have spent an inordinate amount of time looking down microscopes of various sorts in windowless rooms. One should not peer down a scope, you should relax your eyes, look into the distance and hold that relaxation then look down the scope.

After a while you can learn to relax your lenses at will. As a wearer of spectacles I would leave them on and set the diopter adjustment on the eyepieces to zero. They all have rubber edges now so no risk of scratching your glasses.

A potentially useful skill to develop if you are ever unfortunate enough to have to spend your work day in the metaverse.

Labs do not work if you are at home and I wouldn’t trust a robot with glassware in mine. They are useful, if constrained. I used one which read barcodes, the head moved x,y,z it removed samples from 1.5ml tubes then gridded them onto multiwell plates. It could then add reactant if you wanted. Had a macro programming interface for building your own routines.

[ShadowSystems]

Re: Eye strain

Back when I could still see, I made sure I could look out my window merely by looking over the tops of the monitors rather than down from my elevated sitting position. I can confirm that the scenes out the window definitely helped improve my general sense of well being. But then, the scene out my window often included the local All Girls Wrestling Team out practicing their throws & falls in the park. It's amazing what a bunch of sweaty, grunty, athletic young attractive people can do for one's mood. =-)p

[Tomato42]

Re: Eye strain

You could have written just "I never used VR, I have no idea what I'm talking about" it would have the same amount of information content and didn't waste other people's time.

The thing is, that we have those magical devices called "lenses" that change where the apparent focus of things it. It just "happens" that the VR headsets don't force you to focus your eyes as if you were looking at something 2 inches away from your eyes. They make you focus on infinity, or so close to infinity that I don't get blurry vision when relaxing the eye completely.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Eye strain

The thing is, that we have those magical devices called "lenses" that change where the apparent focus of things it. It just "happens" that the VR headsets don't force you to focus your eyes as if you were looking at something 2 inches away from your eyes. They make you focus on infinity, or so close to infinity that I don't get blurry vision when relaxing the eye completely.

And that is indeed one of the fundamental problems with all forms of 3D display. Our eyes do not expect to focus on infinity when looking at something the brains perceives at close. Furthermore, as things move towards us the eyes naturally swivel inwards - carried to extremes this is why you can cross your eyes by watching a finger brought to your nose.

The 3D problem is therefore that the eyes are required to maintain the same focus and the same relative orientation regardless of where the perceived object is. That fights tens of millions of years of evolution and gives most people headaches, eye strain or nausea.

[Tomato42]

Re: Eye strain

You're right, but you're also describing a completely different problem than the OP mentioned

[iron]

Re: Eye strain

According to H&S ergonomics, the top of your monitors should be at eye level as you sit in your chair. You should be able to see over them.

No need for a gap between.

[anonanonanonanonanon]

Are you getting paid by Meta? I see no other explanation for this post

[GruntyMcPugh]

I would imagine moggies are in significantly more danger of being trodden on while their owner is walking towards a virtual water cooler.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Zuckerberg first

Let see him being experimental subject #1 - undergoing long term immersive tests. If he does not become a gibbering idiot with a lot of medical issues, then, open up the testing to a wider/paid subjects.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Zuckerberg first

The problem is that people belonging to WEF sect believe that everyone else is untermensch and disposable.

If you watch some of the videos they produce, you can see their ideology has quite an overlap with Nazism. Experiments on people, serfdom, depopulation and so on.

[John D'oh!]

Re: Zuckerberg first

On the other hand maybe stop watching those videos

[ShadowSystems]

Re: Zuckerberg first

"If he does not become a gibbering idiot with a lot of medical issues..."

Too late. *Cough*

I'll get my coat, it's the one with the pockets full of Dried Frog Pills...

[Kane]

Re: Zuckerberg first

"If he does not become a gibbering idiot..."

A bit beyond that already old chap, what?

[iron]

Re: Zuckerberg first

I'd argue he is already a gibbering idiot with a lot of medical issues and always has been.

I mean anyone who start a website to rate who is hot on campus has issues.

[Alumoi]

Re: Zuckerberg first

Are you sure he didn't test it before going public? I'm not saying he's a gibbering idiot with a lot of medical issues. Well, not gibberring and not a lot, but hey, I'm no MD.

[elsergiovolador]

Wage hacking

So they really want to keep paying low wages and make workers not see the crappy environments they live in.

They think this may be the solution to "you will own nothing and be happy" part.

Because the VR headset of course won't be yours.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

So in conclusion

Immersive 3D environments not good at simulating a 2d screen and keyboard ?

Next week we will discover that a monitor, keyboard and mouse are not the optimal way to control a bicycle

[A Nother Handle]

Re: So in conclusion

"a monitor, keyboard and mouse are not the optimal way to control a bicycle"

I see you have played GTA San Andreas too.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: So in conclusion

Of course not. For a bicycle you want a CLI.

[HelpfulJohn]

Re: So in conclusion

I'm wondering whether the keyboards being simulated were subtending the same visual angles as those in reality and if so, why?

It's surely easy to make large, wrap-around KB's with widely spaced keys? After all, the *virtual* KB's don't use any plastics and don't cost or weigh any more than would "normal" ones.

The same goes for the monitors.

Yes, bandwidth is an issue but not everything on screen moves. Keys, for example, only would when pressed.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: So in conclusion

Use a keyboard that requires I wiggle my fingers or use a keyboard thay requires I wave my arms. I can see it now, thousands of people walking down the sidewalk, flailing their arns and talking to themselves because they decided to take a walk while working. We're gonna need those fully autonomous cars first.

[Howard Sway]

Usability, frustration, anxiety, visual fatigue, motion sickness

I wonder what the developers working on this project are experiencing right now. It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that they are already well past the "OK, you can code and design using the monitors, you only need to wear the headset for testing" stage. There are probably also non-disclosure clauses in the contracts so they can't run off to the media and be the source of the inevitable "Metaverse turned me into a gibbering wreck" stories. But they'll start to emerge anyway. Probably even before the big product launch, if they ever get that far.

Makes you feel sick, drives you mad and isn't very enjoyable will be the user reaction too.

[tekHedd]

Re: Usability, frustration, anxiety, visual fatigue, motion sickness

" frustration, anxiety, visual fatigue" and then they tried doing their jobs in VR and it was even worse. :)

[doublelayer]

Re: Usability, frustration, anxiety, visual fatigue, motion sickness

It wouldn't surprise me to hear that they are doing all the work on computers. They can code up an interesting environment, put on some headsets to play around with it for half an hour, then take them off to go back to writing more code. The novelty of a fake office is probably enough for them to stay interested for that long as long as they don't have to work in it, and since they're only using it for a short period of time, they will only notice the big problems like the walls disappearing, not the small ones like it being annoying and painful to use for a whole day. It wouldn't be the first product to be designed by people who think they know what it's for, not people who will use it like the customers will.

[sabroni]

Re: Usability, frustration, anxiety, visual fatigue, motion sickness

Dunno about a day's work but they're emulating the commute perfectly.

[TheMeerkat]

Re: Usability, frustration, anxiety, visual fatigue, motion sickness

The point of Metaverse is to use it for the meetings. Not duplicating when a keyboards and a monitor in a virtual world.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Usability, frustration, anxiety, visual fatigue, motion sickness

The point of Metaverse is to make money for Meta. Anything else is a secondary consideration.

(As for VR meetings – ugh.)

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: Usability, frustration, anxiety, visual fatigue, motion sickness

The point of Metaverse is to use it for the meetings

I'll turn that around, and ask the obvious question, "WHAT is the point of using it for meetings"?

The order of hierarchy of presence for a meeting with someone goes something like: in the same room, over video, on the phone, written. There are body language cues that lower orders in the hierarchy do not get, which make the communication smoother. For instance, in a face-to-face meeting, you can see if someone is crossing their arms or assuming a defensive posture, in a video call, you can see if someone is frowning, in an audio call, you can tell if someone is being sarcastic or making a joke, and in written form you only have the literal meaning of the words, read in your own internal voice.

There is nowhere in this hierarchy where "VR" fits, because whilst it pretends to be somewhere between video and actual presence, it throws away all the real-life body posture and movements (unless you're wearing some sort of full-body VR suit, which you're not going to be). It also loses the facial expressions that video calling gives you, so it actually falls somewhere between video and audio, where there is no actual use case, because if you want to have "better presence" than audio, you'll go straight to having a video call, and not bother with the VR nonsense.

As I said above, it's a solution looking for a problem that does not exist. It also requires you to wear a bulky headset, which nobody ever said "hey, this is really fun to wear, not at all sweaty, and hugely comfortable" about.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: Usability, frustration, anxiety, visual fatigue, motion sickness

Oh, you think they'll just stop right there, eh? Glad I'll be dead before this tripe becomes the only way to function in society.

[nautica]

With this individual, how would one know the difference between "before" and "after"?

"Fruit and Nutcase

Silver badge

Zuckerberg first

Let see him being experimental subject #1 - undergoing long term immersive tests. If he does not become a gibbering idiot..."

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: With this individual, how would one know the difference between "before" and "after"?

Well, it takes one to know one.

If Zuckerberg ends up like me/worse than me, I should know.

I was hoping that someone would ask "what makes you think he's not a gibbering idiot already"?

[John D'oh!]

Re: With this individual, how would one know the difference between "before" and "after"?

"I was hoping that someone would ask "what makes you think he's not a gibbering idiot already"?"

Sorry I was busy.

[anonanonanonanonanon]

Dystopian futures

Is it my imagination, or is it that when we see VR in pop culture, it's mostly there to escape from a dystopian reality? Or maybe used as some sort of torture device

[Dr Dan Holdsworth]

Re: Dystopian futures

I would think that an extra input system is the answer here: the Sacro-Ileac Neural Induction Probe!

[doublelayer]

Re: Dystopian futures

It's not just the dystopian futures. Some nicer futures also posited a virtual reality setup. The only problem is that they could make up whatever they wanted, so they thought a bit about what VR was for and added such things as simulation for more than just visual senses. From all the VR devices I've seen, they've spent 98% of their time on vision (possibly without getting anywhere), 2% on audio (but never bothering to make other people sound like they're really present), and no time on anything else. This makes some activities a lot harder in VR than in reality, for example anything where vision and touch have to line up properly.

[Anonymous Coward]

While everyone else is immersed....

I'll be busy picking their pockets.

[Potemkine!]

At least they weren't sexually assaulted.

[Ian Johnston]

If that was a sexual assault then shootings in World of Warcraft are murders.

[anonanonanonanonanon]

Do they shoot people in WOW? Arrows maybe?

But yeah, terrible analogy, you go into WOW knowing you're getting killed.

Also, I believe WOW messaging, (And pretty much any online game) has protections against harassment

So well done all round on that comment

[anthonyhegedus]

What is the fucking point?

Let me rephrase that. No, actually, my original question still stands - WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT???

Why wear VR goggles to do work when you can take them off, and do work with the tools right in front of you, you know, like humans have evolved to do over millennia?

Seriously, I cannot see the point - fun for games, but for work? Unless it's to control something in a dangerous environment with remote robots, it just seems like the pipedream of a deluded part-automaton who runs facebook.

[Anonymous Coward]

Started work with pencil 1.0

Ended working career with Windows 10.

Enough!

You can keep your VR witchcraft!

[Helcat]

I've used VR on and off - got three different headsets to work with, too.

The issues reported are what I'd expect: Most people need a point of reference in their vision but developers keep forgetting to include a 'ghost' reference point (aka the shadow of a person's nose). This tackles motion sickness, which is the nausea, and helps with orientation. We use that fixed point of reference constantly, and VR headsets remove it unless it's programmed in to the software. This was known ages ago - but ignored.

then you have the issue of correctly configuring the focal points for the screens: Although most people have a dominant eye, that doesn't mean both eyes use the same focal length - you need a vision assessment/prescription to get the focal lengths for each eye for accuracy. if you don't have the capacity to handle this on the headset then you'll strain the eyes by having one eye out of focus and trying to correct this.

Basically, everyone is different, and our eyes are inclined to vary so VR has to be adaptable else we can't use it for prolonged periods (Sony's PS4 VR can be very disorientating, easily triggering motion sickness, where as the Oculus isn't quite so bad and Vive has been, in my experience, the better option. Then again, long sighted in one eye, short in the other, no dominant eye... Go team Cat!)

[Michael Wojcik]

A virtual what now?

spent in headsets and a virtual "office"

Initially misread that as "a virtual 'orifice'". I suspect that's both a better description of the experience, and a more plausible use case.