What are we losing by burying ourselves in immersive experiences?

What do you do later: wander in the landscapes of Van Gogh, travel in time to ancient Egypt or perhaps catch a posthumous concert of a musical hero? These are the types of “immersive” experiences of which we are increasingly flooded, covering vertiginous possibilities that each promise to place us in the center of their history. The immersive entertainment market worldwide was estimated at around $ 114 billion in 2024, and it is expected to quadruple at around $ 442 billion by 2030.

As a journalist and fan of pop culture for life, I am simultaneously captivated and unstable by immersive entertainment. My most memorable experiences have been intensely personalized and powerfully emotional; They made me exalted, in tears, even “cybersick”. When we are wrapped in a story, in particular a relayed through a helmet, we are withdrawn from real time – undoubtedly part of the attraction.

It is not the escape that evalent to me, however – a great culture frees us from daily constraints – it is insularity. Immersive events raise the subjective point of view, often to the detriment of community energy which feeds the social atmosphere, therefore even immersive packaged emissions can resemble lonely activities, with human companions resembling NPCs (non -playable video game characters).

The Keren Zaiontz cultural cultural invented a net term for our consumption of immersive entertainment: “narcissistic spectator”. A study revealed that the use of virtual reality has induced dissociative symptoms in 83.9% of participants. The long -term effects remain nebulous, but research, including a study of tourist experiences of virtual reality, has highlighted recurring themes of dependence on experience and isolation.

At the London Barbican Center, according to The Sound is a new immersive exhibition whose installations offer imaginative personalized features, in particular Your inner symphony“Sensing Stations”, which generate unique visuals by following our bodily reactions to music. Luke Kemp, who directs the immersive programming of the Barbican, says that these experiences meet our need for “playful” cultural spaces, accessible independently of prior knowledge: “It allows the public to have an agency and to feel part of something.”

Robyn Landau in Kinda Studios, co-developer of Your inner symphonyunderlines the link to interception – our awareness of the interior senses of our body. “When we have these individually transformative experiences that connect us to ourselves, they actually transform the way we present ourselves in the world and the way we connect to others,” she says.

According to psychologist Sophie Janicke-Bowles, immersive experiences create scenarios where our “processing power is disputed just enough to interest us”. This “can have an incredible recovery effect on our psyche, where we can detach ourselves from our daily concerns and our cognitive concerns, emotionally and even physiologically absorbed by something different,” she told me.

Having grown up in clubs, I am struck by the number of immersive experiences evoke dancefloor; the extraordinary In the pursuit of repetitive beatsA multi-player virtual reality tribute to the British rave scene in which network helmets allow groups to interact in real time, is also at the Barbican.

But for me, there is always a curious tension in play in immersive entertainment, and I am torn in the place where the fast development scene leads us. This gives us the opportunity to connect to ourselves, but I am less convinced than that amplifies our link with those around us. If we remain obsessed with our own thoughts, then we miss the situation as a whole. Immersive entertainment could make VIPs of all of us, but culture should also bring us together.

Arwa Haider is a London -based culture journalist