Recently, we’ve reported how prolonged use of virtual reality can cause an unpleasant repetitive stress injury called gorilla arm syndrome, but even short bursts of VR fun can have painful and costly consequences.
While we don’t have any hard numbers, it’s becoming increasingly clear that it won’t take a long time before VR will be responsible for more broken TVs than Nintendo Wii. Watch the following guy to see how easy it can be to go from VR to ER and lose a TV in the process:
What we do know is that VR-related insurance claims jumped by 31% in 2021, according to data published by insurance company Aviva. The overall increase since 2016 has been 68%.
“As new games and gadgets become popular, we often see this playing through in the claims made by our customers,” commented Kelly Whittington, Aviva’s UK property claims director, for The Guardian. “In the past we’ve seen similar trends involving consoles with handsets, fitness games and even the likes of rogue fidget spinners.”
The insurance company revealed that the average VR-related claim is about $922. It also probably won’t surprise you that TVs are, indeed, the most common household item gets destroyed as VR players fight hordes of zombies, climb steep mountains, or pretend to be gorillas playing the game of tag.
Here are some tips we can give you to avoid experiencing your own VR-related accident:
- Don’t use VR when not feeling well.
- Create a large open space by moving away as many objects as you can.
- Don’t stand directly in front of your TV.
- Have a friend nearby and tell them to alert you in case you get dangerously close to an obstacle.
- Try to remember that you’re not actually physically present in virtual reality experiences
