Verified on 08/29/2022 by PasseportSanté
Have you ever been a victim of cybersickness? Behind this English word, a malaise well known to all, whose origin we have finally found!
What is cybersickness?
Cybersickness, or virtual nausea, is a malaise one feels following heavy exposure to screens. It results in stomach aches, dizziness or even the urge to vomit.
After scrolling for too long, the body can become “detached” from reality. The contrast between the movement of your eyes, following a scrolling screen, and your body, external to this process, is sometimes too great.
It is this destabilizing phenomenon, which we have all experienced at least once following looking at a screen, which characterizes cybersickness. Comparable to motion sickness or seasickness, virtual nausea is a real problem for people working on screens on a daily basis.
In a study published in the Journal of applied psychology, researchers from the University of Newcastle (Australia) explain: “Severe motion sickness and cybersickness can be considered the same clinical condition.”
For this, they studied 30 young adult volunteers exposed to virtual thrills like roller coasters.
A contrasting reality
In an article published in August 2020, the British scientist Cynthia Bulik explains that she was the victim of a violent virtual malaise.
While her colleague shows her something on her tablet, Cynthia Bulik has a violent stomach ache and wants to vomit. In his story published in Psychology Todayshe explains that it took an hour to regain her senses.
This feeling is all the stronger when using VR, or virtual reality, well known to video game professionals. This consists of fully immersing yourself in your game, thanks to a helmet that encompasses the player’s entire view. In its early days, VR was criticized in particular for being considered very emetic.
