Impact Of Virtual World In Real Life: Research Studies

1. Colbert, A., Yee, N., & George, G. (2016). The digital workforce and the workplace of the future. Academy of Management Journal, 59(3), 731-739.

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In this research, the author discusses on the impact of the virtual on the remodeling of the workplace in the future. The digitalization of almost all activities has changed the entire scenario of workplace. The author uses terms like digital natives and digital immigrants for young and adult people and discusses how the adult generation is adapting to the digital technology.

The author is trying to explore the new innovations and explorations of human brain in creating this virtual world.  The significance of the study lies in the comparatives study of the workplaces of the present and how will it look in the future. The author focuses on the fact that the mobile technologies and digitalisation has been playing a major role in sharpening of the human brain. In this research Colbert and George have reportedly disagreed with Tanya Lewis according to who , the virtual reality has been affecting a human brain and many instances of learning and memory disorders has been observed in this issue.

2. Laver, K. E., George, S., Thomas, S., Deutsch, J. E., & Crotty, M. (2015). Virtual reality for stroke rehabilitation. The Cochrane Library.

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The authors of this research have tried to evaluate the impact of the virtual world in helping the patients who have gone through major attacks or strokes in the near future. The work emphasizes on a comparative study between the virtual therapy and the conventional therapy.

The work is done by a group of students in the Department of Rehabilitation of University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.  The relevance of the study lies on the fact that this virtual reality will be used more often in various rehabilitation programs in the near future. According to a report by G.C Berdeu of Rutgers University the use of virtual reality in the health treatment of the stroke patients can be challenging as well as advantageous.  At present the issues like lack of computer skills and deficient infrastructure of communication can be a problem. Unlike him the authors of this report is adamant in using the technology for the betterment of the patients.

3. Hammick, J. K., & Lee, M. J. (2014). Do shy people feel less communication apprehension online? The effects of virtual reality on the relationship between personality characteristics and communication outcomes. Computers in Human Behavior, 33, 302-310.

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This research by Jin K. Hammick and Moon J Lee elaborately emphasizes on the effects of three dimensional virtual worlds on the communication skills of an individual.

This research is published by Elsevier publishing house as the 33^rd volume in Human Behaviour. The research is important because it explores and investigates different communication experiences with various individuals. The author mentions in his research that the shy people are not very active in the virtual world like Second Life. However, the author also mentions how Baker and Oswald’s idea of shy people being more active in the social media is contradictory to their study.

4. Gee, J. P. (2014). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Macmillan.

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In this study, the author elaborately discusses the positive outcomes of playing video games and the means from which we can learn from.

James Paul Gee’s book “what video games have to teach us about learning and literacy” is a well known work and has been published by Macmillan publishers. As the video games are becoming more and more popular with time and humans (primarily kids) are getting more obsessed with it, it is important to assess its positive outcome, which has been done in this research. The research mentions about Poole (2000) and Herz’s (1996) research on the video game industry and its profits. Poole in his research mentions how the video game industry have no good outcomes> however, this research disagrees with these facts with a comparative study.

5. Zhang, H., Lu, Y., Gupta, S., & Zhao, L. (2014). What motivates customers to participate in social commerce? The impact of technological environments and virtual customer experiences. Information & Management, 51(8), 1017-1030.

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This research is based on the factors of virtual reality which affects consumer behavior. In the age of online retail and e-sales, the virtual experiences of the customers have become common in urban areas.

The research is included in the 51^st volume of Information and Management and holds its importance in its ability to evaluate the social environment. However, the research discusses the sample tests of Renren and Sina Weibo in the study, which are distinctly different for this work. This research discusses that the social environment of a customer becomes muich better in the virtual world whereas Weibo and Renren’s research disagree to this point of view.

6. Diemer, J., Alpers, G. W., Peperkorn, H. M., Shiban, Y., & Mühlberger, A. (2015). The impact of perception and presence on emotional reactions: a review of research in virtual reality. Frontiers in psychology, 6, 26.

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In this research the authors have elaborately discussed about the impact of virtual media on the emotional reactions of human beings. The study discusses about the entrance of the virtual reality in the drawing rooms of common man and how it is affecting the

The research has been conducted in Department of Psychology in University of Wuzberg in Germany. The ability of virtual reality to simulate real life through various influences in human mind has been a major highlight of this study. According to Slater and Wilbur’s research in 1997 the phenomenon of Virtual reality has the power to extend itself into the human mind till a certain dimension which affects the real actions of a human being. In this research the authors not only mentions the impact but elaborately discusses impacts like spider phobia.  

7. Grewal, D., Roggeveen, A. L., & Nordfält, J. (2017). The future of retailing. Journal of Retailing, 93(1), 1-6.

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This research highlights on the technological influences of decision making, the effect of visual marketing in the increase in sales, the processes of data collection and its utilization and the evaluation of profitability because of virtual reality.

This journal is published in Elseiver and deals with important issues like retail market. As the online retail market and the virtual consumerism is in growth this research holds its significance. The authors draw a comparative with Nikolova’s work of how virtual consumerism is beneficiary for both the customers and the sellers whereas, this study also discusses about the problems of alienation and lack of personal relation between the two parties in online retail.

8. Labrecque, L. I., vor dem Esche, J., Mathwick, C., Novak, T. P., & Hofacker, C. F. (2013). Consumer power: Evolution in the digital age. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27(4), 257-269.

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This research thoroughly discusses about the empowerment of the customers for the virtual shopping websites. This research discusses about technology’s role in business and virtual reality’s role in the balancing of power.

This is an authentic journal on Interactive Marketing published by Elsevier. This journal draws a connection between the consumer behaviour and the development of virtual reality. The authors comparatively discuss the evidence and support for the power of the consumer to choose and react with Cheng and Chieng’s work. The author states that the increase in number of choices is the real reason behind the increase in customer power.

9. Cheng, L. K., Chieng, M. H., & Chieng, W. H. (2014). Measuring virtual experience in a three-dimensional virtual reality interactive simulator environment: a structural equation modeling approach. Virtual Reality, 18(3), 173-188.

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The research discusses about the enormous growth of the market of Virtual reality and positive effects of it in the user’s behavior.

This article is written by Chieng and Cheng and has been published by Springer Link. The importance of the study lies in a three dimensional research on the growth of virtual reality which is more holistic than other researches. The research comparatively discusses about the model, environment and consumer assumptions in this research.

10. Faiola, A., Newlon, C., Pfaff, M., & Smyslova, O. (2013). Correlating the effects of flow and telepresence in virtual worlds: Enhancing our understanding of user behavior in game-based learning. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 1113-1121.

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This research is based on the effects of telepresence in the virtual worlds on the user behaviors. This research also emphasizes how game based learning make things easier.

This research is published in an authentic journal in Science Direct. The significance of this research lies on its reliability and lies on the correlation of the consumer behaviour and game based learning. Unlike Huang, who critics game based learning, the author emphasises the positives of it.