When I was looking for an interesting concept where I could make use of the VR technologie, I thought about the possibility to let the user experience different versions of the same location. This idea catched my attention because I think such a concept works very well with the immersive nature that the VR tech has. You can let people experience things that they normally couldn`t and you can make existing feelings and mechanisms visible.

Because of this, I decided to make a project that focuses on social media / smartphone addiction. Fact is, that humans
nowadays are obsessed with their smartphones and many of them use social media apps to get their daily dose of dopamine. The dopamine gets released when users get positive interactions from other individuals. This can be a like on a photo, a retweet from another person or simply a message. When the dopamine gets released the user feels excited, happy and energised and so I decided to try to visualise this correlation in my project.

The Concept:
The player starts in a boring/greyish room which only has the bare minimum of furniture in it. The room feels cold and unfriendly and the users gets bored really quickly. The only item that stands out is a smartphone laying on desk; the display is glowing in the dark. As soon as the user picks up the phone the whole room changes. likes pop out of your phone and suddenly the room becomes colourful and interesting to look at. Happy music starts playing and the player now has a lot of things to discover. The players emotions get influenced by this suroundings and he will feel happy and motivated - like when they get the dopamine kick from their social media interactions. The only problem is that the room will turn back to its cold form as soon as the player drops the phone. This will lead them having to have their phone in their hands if they want to get anything out of the VR experience. It will be interesting to see how many people are willing to pay that price.