We were in AltspaceVR, a Second Life-like virtual world that is one of several social platforms available to early adopters of VR with Oculus Rifts or competing headsets HTC Vives and Samsung Gear VRs. As rendered clouds slid past, he told me about Oklahoma City, where he lives. He was 15. I was wearing the body of a robot: a metal spiral with a featureless head, like the dot of an “i”.
“I’m probably the first person in Oklahoma to get virtual reality,” he told me, in a tone that conveyed both pride and great, inconsolable loneliness.
See the full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/23/virtual-reality-cool-empty-community-oculus-rift