VR Technology is Good for More than Entertainment

When you think of virtual reality technology, you might think more about movies, games and even porn than you think about helpful technology that could give you a boost in the office. However, you should change your thinking because now there are new reports that workplaces have been avoiding injuries due to virtual reality training.

Since implementing virtual reality job training, Spanish auto company SEAT has seen a decrease of 70% in muscular injuries for certain physical jobs. This technology is generally used on people who work on the assembly lines so they can avoid repetitive motion injuries.

The company has a biomechanical lab where they make virtual models of employees to study how they are moving. Then this creates virtual avatars that can be manipulated in the virtual environment to see how different changes to the factory might affect conditions for workers positively or negatively. According to the company, some workers might perform the same exact motion up to 100 times per day. This can easily lead to repetitive motion injuries that could be prevented if they just study how the employees are moving through virtual reality. Then they can implement training programs, also using virtual reality, to show employees how to move in a way to avoid injury.

This shows that while virtual reality may be all in good fun, it actually has applications that can affect people’s health in their everyday lives. Virtual reality can be a powerful tool with applications that we haven’t even thought of just yet. Imagining the future of tomorrow is a lot different than it was even 5 years ago. Even futurists – experts on trends – are having a hard time keeping up to accurately predict what we are going to be doing in the near future.