In November 2018, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, in conjunction with Arizona State University held the inaugural Future of Childhood Salon on Immersive Media and Childhood Development. Our Director of Education, Dr. Brooke Morrill, PhD., was one of the participants in the Salon. CEO Jesse Schell submitted one of the five vision papers that helped guide the 60-person workshop. The summary and conclusion the group came to were just released.The focus for the salon included:
- Immersive media- augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), and cross/extended reality (XR)
- Children under the age of 13 and their development
- The opportunities that can arise when combining immersive media and children.
According to the report, the main themes of discussion the Salon aimed to cover were:
- imagining the future of childhood,
- considerations for design,
- crafting a research agenda,
- exploring priorities for policy, advocacy, and funding.
In his vision paper, Jesse Schell makes a strong case for why VR is made for children.
Why do I say that VR and AR are media for children? For two reasons. First, the primary feature of these mediums is that you interact with your body. These are experiences that encourage standing, walking, throwing, touching, grabbing, holding, stretching, ducking, and crawling. Adults are shy about interacting with their bodies. They prefer to sit and watch, or point and click. For children, exploring the world is a full-body experience, which lines up perfectly with the strengths of VR and AR. The second reason is because one of the most powerful experiences that VR and AR are able to provide is that of giving the user an imaginary friend.