Folk hazards and health panics and virtual reality

The hypothesis examined in this paper is that it is almost inevitable that the widespread commercial use of immersive virtual environments will generate a number of health scares and that immersive virtual environments will achieve the status of a folk hazard. The associated health panic will fuel, and be fuelled by, personal injury litigation and calls for standardisation and regulation of the design and use of immersive virtual environments. The challenge will be how to avoid entrepreneurial litigation and premature or inappropriate forms of standardisation and regulation. The paper presents a brief review of the health concerns which have been associated with the commercial use of VDTs and the public use of video games