Mukund 

Hello and welcome to pedal my way podcast where we talk about anything related to cycling and fitness. I’m your host, Mukund Murali. If you’re a fan of the show, Please remember to subscribe to this podcast and follow the website paddlemyway.com. Also follow at paddle my way on Instagram to let me know of your cycling. And fitness goals. 

Rob 
Hello, how’s it going, Mukund? 

Mukund 
Hey, Rob. Good afternoon. How are you? 

Rob 
I’m doing well. I’m ready for another podcast, another paddle, My way podcast. How you feeling? 

Mukund 
I am feeling great. Let’s get into it. 

Rob 
Perfect. And I just saw that Apple’s new VR technology has just come out. The vision pro. And I thought it’s a really interesting idea that. Technology is transitioning obviously quite quickly as it tends to do it. It tends to accelerate because of the speed of innovation. I think the theme could today could be what are the implications of this new technology and how is that going to impact us as a society as humans in general moving forward, it seems like a big idea to have in a podcast chat between two people who are not. But not neuroscientists and not technology experts. We’ll put it there from the beginning, but I think it’s an interesting topic and I think it’s one worth discuss. 

Mukund 
Definitely there must be something of interest for people, not only the name Apple, but even the new realm of AI VR. 

Rob 
Did you say they already have pre-orders for the Vision Pro? 

Mukund 
I think they sold out pre-orders already of the Vision Pro, yes. 

Rob 
I wouldn’t be surprised a few of the articles I read of Verge article and Tom’s hardware is another good one for technology. I read their review and they were saying, you know, this is a hugely expensive piece of kit and I’m. Thinking yeah, $3000 is a lot of money. Don’t get me wrong, but, and we’ll get into this in a bit. But this is supposed to be a genuine step forward in in VR technology and in AR assisted reality, augmented reality technology. The value of this technology and the implications of what it, what it means for us is, is where I find. Interest and hopefully other people will too. Let’s begin with Apple. Smartphones in general. I remember when the first iPhone came out, you and I makanda both old enough that. Was it 2007? I think when the iPhone first hit the market. 

Mukund 
Yeah, yeah, the. 

Rob 
I went with a friend of mine who was a Big Apple fan and he we went to a local mall to buy to buy it for him. That first interaction with the iPhone, that first seeing of people’s response to it had a huge. Impact on the way I thought about. Not technology, I guess, but marketing of technology. 

Mukund 
I give it to you. So there have been numerous debates and there will be numerous debates on. IPhone slash Apple products versus non apple products. Phone wise comparing Apple to Samsung for example. Computers, you know, Apple laptops compared to non Apple laptop. So there’s no answer to this debate. Different platform, different experiences, different user base. Different of course price ranges, but what really sticks out is Apple kind of what they call as a walled garden. Their environment is kind of. Within quotes, pretty strong and pretty self sustained within what they are offering. I mean it has some controversies and you know not favorable business practices. But on the whole, the users don’t really seem to care. It’s the outside people that want to get into Apple Garden especially. The messages that I had, the blue, the blue bubble that you must have heard of non Apple phones don’t have the blue bubble and that caused some controversy in the past couple of months and the apples like well if you want Blue Bull, just get the just get the iPhone kind of that was the that was their answer. 

Rob 
Their solution is buy our product. Then you don’t have the proper. 

Mukund 
And I might be biased because I have an iPhone I used to have an Apple laptop which lasted like close to 12 years. I have no complaints and the motherboard gave away. I’ve not had any bad experiences with Apple. My PC I’m running. Windows I’m coming in with exposure to both environments, but our topic today is more on the virtual world and how this affects our social interaction, our mental health or mental. State in such interactions. 

Rob 
That’s the big discussion point for me when I see these things. I think it does have an impact on our conversations and these social media interactions. There is a negative impact and a severe and negative impact on society in general from most of these artificial engagement platform. But the great thing about these. These systems obviously is that you know, you get to speak to people around the world and you get to have conversations with people that you wouldn’t ordinarily speak to. The bad thing is there’s no real implication or or there’s no real. Events that negative event that can happen if you if you say something to someone that they don’t agree with and if. You you can speak anonymously relatively easily. While we’re having this conversation about social media, the next innovation and technology, whether it’s we call it augmented reality or virtual reality, doesn’t really matter, but the next. Innovation and technology is already taking place, and to me the the acceleration of innovation and technology is the thing that I go back to when I think about what is the impact now so. Really what we’re talking about is. What is the impact of this technology on our brains in the long term and the individual and society, and in general, what are we in for in the future? 10/15/20 years down the line when not only has this technology. Ubiquitous. My main theory behind this is that things like school can take place in virtual reality. Now. It would make it a lot easier to have a, you know, a huge class all sort of learning together within the same classroom. But then is there a level of social isolation that takes place then? Because our brain doesn’t get the same feedback from that virtual environment that we would do if we were in a real? Room having real conversations, seeing a real chalkboard or a real screen in. Front of us. 

Mukund 
So we’re talking about isolation, right? I see that can be the same, a very fringe outlying group of people. Using this for nefarious purposes online is also a safety net for the perpetrators of extreme acts, and also the victims of these extreme acts. So I can make fun of you online. You’ve got there’s no face to me. Just you don’t know my identity. I can call you whatever I want. I can make you feel bad and push you over the edge. This can be an extension of that for if you want to take it as a bad adaptation, but the mental health aspect is really crucial because it’s still the same kind of a virtual environment which people are starting to get. They take everything that happens. They seriously, especially in a charged political environment. This can be an extension of that I hope to be wrong about this. But that is a very fringe group. That’s a very specific group, but that can cause the most impact on society in a bad way. 

Rob 
Yeah, I I I agree with you. It’s very easy to leave a comment online without knowing the person that you’re leaving the comment for or the the person that has written an article or the person that has written a comment on social media, you just you respond in the moment and then you close the. Browser you get on with your day and then there’s no consequence of that. And I think that this goes to the fact that more people are feeling isolated. Think this has been going on since before the pandemic. I just think the pandemic sort of speed up put a a greater spotlight on it. A lot of people don’t put thought into what they’re saying online. They don’t put any. Emotion to it. If you if you’re having a conversation in person, the emotion that you have and the emotions that you feel from that, it’s different than if you have a conversation online and you. See or read a comment. You see you see some. It’s it’s a different experience. And so we’re sort of training ourselves to have these conversations online. But important topic is to have in 10/15/20 years time. How are kids going to be interacting with the technology? 

Mukund 
I’m of the same opinion. We progress as a society by technological improvements. I’m not saying this technology is wrong, but I think we are trying to find a solution to a problem that. Does not exist yet. You can get it. You can play with it. If you get value out of it for a number of years like we have come to accept the cell phones now, initially everybody questioned the value of the cell phone, but then it proved to be invaluable in the course of the decade, right? What from 2007? Even now, even late late 80s and 90s with just a cell phone. Now you can’t find somebody without one. Because that has its own, you know, people started using it, but it was a quicker option because the phone was so communication device. What device is a virtual reality headset? What? Is it right? We don’t know yet other than very limited application like you said for games, maybe for office conferences, watching movies. But can you sit there for three hours with? The headset on. I go to the value of it. The second thing is why do you need it? Other than novelty of it? What is it that you’re lacking that you need a virtual reality headset for? And the third thing is what do you plan to do with it? Even if you get it, do you? Are you a developer you know? Are you kind of make more things out of it? A couple of my family members have the Quest Pro. I mean the Quest headset. I used it like two years ago by the way, it was not recent. It was two years ago. I’ve never seen. Use it. And talk about it after the first month after they got. Whenever I bring them, they’re like, oh, yeah, you know what? Yeah, I’ve meaning to take it out. But, you know, we haven’t had the time. So you spent like, 4 hundred $500 at the time, just collecting dust. We have to be conscious going for at least with the bigger environmental message. What is it that you’re buying? Why do you need it? What do you have use for it? Other than the affordability, that’s my overall thing from it, you know, from a mental point of view. You need to kind of take a step back and understand what it is that you’re buying, like like go, like going back to the to to what you stated earlier, what use do you get out of it? Do you really need it? Want is different from need. I think taking a step back is going to help you understand the mental aspects of it and also making the realization that you don’t need it. 

Rob 
Right. Well, the for how long is the is the big question the the want versus need is a very interesting topic too. In general, there’s definite benefits to this technology, but there is also a hidden element to it that when you have conversations with people, I think you just mentioned this a little while ago. When people when someone is a an avid Facebook user, you can see when you have a conversation with them that there’s there’s no back and forth. There is no sort of sparring of ideas. The ideas are their ideas or something they’ve seen online. My main reason for bringing this topic. And and and wanting this to be a part of the conversation today in the podcast is that although the technology is exciting and interesting and and new and and shiny and amazing. There is something changing within the way we’re interacting with one another that I think on an individual level, we have to sort of consider each time. Not only we use social media or this new vision Pro, if you are going to use it, if you think twice about how we have conversations and how we interact with people, whether it’s online or offline. I’m trying turn my phone off when I go meet people and trying to have a conversation where if someone asks me something I don’t immediately Google it. I don’t immediately go to my phone and say like oh I I don’t know the answer but I’ll find out. I try to sort of have a conversation, although there’s no. In theory, there’s no benefit to having a conversation of what we think the answer is. There is some sort of communication or benefit. Relational benefit to figuring out something together, whether you sort of like, have that conversation and say, how do you feel about this topic? We don’t know the answers. This is not the important thing. The important thing is to know the answers is to talk about what, how we feel about the topic itself. What I would say to take away is that have more conversations about how people are feeling. Rather than about what is the cool feature of this thing you’re using? Enjoy your experiences with people and be with people. Think about. Why these companies are coming up with this technology? Think about what we’re doing with the technology and how. We feel in the moment while using these things do we get angry? Do we get sad? Do we get excited? What does that mean? What are our emotions when we’re using it? 

Mukund 
I agree with you. I pay more attention to the emotional aspect of it. Asking questions as to why you need something because I try to make my life easier and my life gets easier the less things I own. So do you. Need it? How often do you see yourself using? Get it if you need it. If not, you can live without it and people without a smartphone today and they are fine. You know nothing. Actually, they are actually happier than people with smartphones technology just to make your life easier. It does not make or break light. So if you don’t need something, you don’t have to use it. As simple as that. You don’t have to feel peer pressured into using it because not everybody is from the same situation. Just take a step back, analyze it before jumping in. You know, with all the excitement, this would be my kind of set. So it was a great conversation today to start the year with. 

Rob 
Yeah, this is a great conversation and I appreciate your time today and thank you everyone for listening to me complain about Apple for half an hour. I appreciate. 

Mukund 
It. And so we’ll be back with more complaints and grants so, you know, check us out on Instagram, at pedal my weight and till next time Rob you have a nice. 

Rob 
Too, thank you. Appreciate it. Bye for now.