VR Is Here to Help With Our New Reality

Yesterday I took an hour-long break from answering emails and staring at boxed-in faces in video calls to follow an abandoned dirt road near Bears Ears, Utah, in a dusty pink twilight. At first hopelessly straight, the road soon twisted and banked through low hills and scrubbed out vegetation. The horizon, speckled with plateaus, sat below a cloudless sky stamped with a perfect view of the Milky Way. Outside, in reality, it was early afternoon under thick San Francisco fog, and I hadn't left the confines of my crowded house in days. Here there was space to move, to be alone, to let my mind off leash. I was in Google Earth VR.

As we all pitch in to flatten the curve of this pandemic, countless people are suddenly stuck at home trying to scrape together a semblance of productivity between interruptions from kids and the pajama malaise. The New York Times’ Kevin Roose wrote what many able-bodied and neurotypical people are probably feeling: “Working from home is a good option for new parents, people with disabilities and others who aren’t well-served by a traditional office setup.” However, “Most people should work … near other people and avoid solitary work-from-home arrangements whenever possible.”