FUTURE OF WORK|CYBER SICKNESS

Are You Aware Of Cyber Sickness?

Learn about it for future wellness

Introduction

What prompted me to write about cybersickness? A friend of mine was very keen on gaming. Whenever we met she would be immersed in it. She told me to forcibly get her out of it by taking her out for a walk. While walking she would keep on talking about the various games and how addictive they are once you get involved with them.

One day she herself called and wanted to go out. This was unusual and I complimented her to become a little social to meet people around her. She broke down and said that the doctor had told her to get off the computer screens and withdraw herself from long periods of gaming or sitting in one position as she was diagnosed with cybersickness.

Cybersickness is becoming quite a common problem with people these days. With working from home duties many headsets are being used and Augmented and Virtual reality are being endorsed as a modern system of viewing things in life. Is cybersickness due to AR and VR? Let us first find out what these terms mean and then see if they are related to cybersickness.

What are Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality?

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) give you a great experience in viewing the real world and the virtual world.

AR enhances a live view by adding digital elements while using the camera on a smartphone. Augmented reality experiences are given by Snapchat lenses and the game Pokemon Go. Facebook has reinvented itself to be called Meta to give the experience of AR and VR.

VR is an experience that completely shuts out the physical world through immersion. It uses those devices which are enabled with HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, or Google Cardboard. Those who are using it are transported into a number of real-world and imagined environments like the middle of the desert with camels or a dream world. The experience makes everything look real and alive.

AR is a real-world setting and VR is virtual. Those who like to use AR are able to control their presence in the real world but those who want to use VR are controlled by the system.

VR requires a headset device. AR can be experienced through a smartphone. The difference between AR and VR is that while AR is able to enhance both the virtual and real-world, VR can only enhance a fictional reality.

Cyber sickness is due to Visual Reality

What is Cyber Sickness?

Cybersickness is through your computer screens. scrolling fast on your phone playing games or zooming through social media, computer, or TV with fast-moving images can cause you to have cybersickness.

Cyber sickness is also a result of Virtual Reality. It is quite similar to motion sickness but is distinct from it.

The symptoms of cybersickness are nausea, dizziness, eye strain headache, and general disorientation.

Cybersickness does not involve any movement, so cybersickness and motion sickness are two different terms. The result however is the same.

Nausea

Nausea is a signal to show cybersickness. It is bad if you have a full stomach or there are strong smells or a stuffy room.

Dizziness

If you work on a screen for long periods of time the screen affects you with the perception of movement. You start feeling that the room is spinning Dizziness can make it difficult to concentrate.

Eyestrain

Electronic devices being used for long give eye strain creating the problem of dry eyes, irritation, and blurry images.

Headache

Doctors recommend getting up from the laptop after every half an hour. movement is necessary. Stretching goes along with your body position changes. If you continue to sit in one position you develop neck and shoulder strain, with eye strain, and headache. Other symptoms could be drowsiness, flushing, and sweating.

These symptoms occur for sometime when the headset has been removed after viewing

What causes cybersickness?

Cybersickness is the mismatch of information received by the parts of the body that regulate vision and those which regulate balance. In this circumstance, the brain can identify that your body is not moving but your eyes are registering the data and feel that you are moving and forwarding the data to the brain too.

Let me explain:

• Cybersickness is caused by a mismatch in sensory input that is involved with the: visual system. It is the communication between your eyes and
• It is a mismatch of sensory input with the vestibular system the senses between the inner ear senses and head movement and balance.
• Cybersickness is the imbalance of the proprioceptive system and sensory receptors throughout your body.

At times while viewing a flashing screen, your eyes will tell your brain there’s a lot of movement. But your vestibular and proprioceptive systems tell your brain that all is steady. This contradiction creates the symptoms of lightheadedness and makes you sick in your stomach.

Researches are taking place at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Scientists have found a way to predict if an individual will experience cybersickness by the way he/she responds to a moving visual field. This knowledge should help them to develop counteractions to cybersickness.

The takeaways

What can we do to avoid cybersickness?

There are some techniques to avoid cybersickness:

• First of all think of reducing your overall screen time
• It is most important to take frequent breaks to rest your eyes, stretch, and change positions
• Remove focus from the screen and look at something different outside your screen.
• Do not use multiple screens at one time
• Try to listen to audio presentations rather than watching too many videos.
• The scroll speed should be reduced.
• Turn off pop-ups and avoid flashy displays
• In a moving vehicle, electronic screens should be avoided.

Understand cybersickness then you can learn to avoid it. In the words Matthew Crowson, M.D., a neurotologist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Cyber sickness is the following:

“Say you’re scrolling on a screen for a long period of time and it’s filling up your visual field — that can give your body the sense that it’s moving, However, your body knows that you’re not moving. It’s that conflict of signals that drives the symptoms of cybersickness.”

To conclude

One very effective way is to close your eyes and learn to take deep breaths and move away from video games and periodically rest from the screen.

Krokos and Varshney are among the first to do research through the use of EEG — which records brain activity through sensors on the scalp — to measure and quantify cybersickness for VR users.

They found a correlation between the recorded brain activity and self-reported symptoms from the participants in their research study.

The work has been helpful for cognitive psychologists, game developers and physicians to learn more about cybersickness and how to alleviate it.

Be aware and take care of yourself.

The future of work is all about hybrid work and computers and screens. Remember to take breaks and be careful and avoid cybersickness.

©Dr. Preeti Singh, 2021.

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