Is virtual reality a danger for children?

The question is debated between entrepreneurs, sometimes accused of making a profit on their backs, and the scientific community, skeptical about the benefits of this technology.

Mainak Chaudhuri is project manager for the French start-up Actronika, which develops technologies related to touch in the interactions between humans and machines.

Present this week at the VivaTech show in Paris, devoted to digital and start-ups, he is convinced that virtual reality is "the first step towards the metaverse" and that it does not present any danger for children.

“They're just taking part in an experience;

it is not about taking part in a firefighting or being involved on a battlefield.

We are not creating suffering,” he told AFP.

What about violent or sexual content?

Nevertheless, concerns are growing about how virtual reality increasingly responds to economic issues.

Among investors, Meta, the parent company of Facebook which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, is particularly influential on this technology.

Although the company has already taken several steps to give parents more control over the content that children have access to, "the problem is that children are exposed to content that does not concern them", s' worries Kavya Pearlman, cybersecurity expert.

At the heart of his concerns: the way in which children can be made to become creators of content without wanting to, or exposure to violent and sexual content.

Witness the story of Nina Jane Patel, a harassed British entrepreneur in an immersive experience.

“I felt like I was trapped”

"I entered the common space and, almost immediately, three or four male avatars approached me: I felt trapped," she says.

They started verbally harassing me, touching my avatar without my consent.

Meanwhile, another was taking pictures.”

For Valentino Megale, an American pharmacologist specializing in neuroscience, the risk for children is "that virtual reality causes changes in their identity, their emotions, their psychology, while they are precisely in the process of forging their personality".

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  • high tech

  • Virtual reality

  • Child