Technology Adoption of Augmented and Virtual Reality in a Progressive Philippines: A Socio-techno-economical Analysis

Living in the information technology era amidst the rapid digital transformation that we are experiencing, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are regarded to have great potential in changing the landscape of many fields such as gaming and entertainment, education and training, tourism and cultural heritage, architecture, and engineering, automotive, defense and security, and healthcare. While it is true that AR and VR technologies brings tremendous growth and potential, these technologies face a wide range of challenges. The most common challenges and issues among the AR/VR applications as observed in this study are the privacy and security concerns of users where personal and sensitive information can be gathered and collected and are vulnerable to unauthorized intrusion. Affordability, latency, health concerns, perceived usability challenges, and ethical issues are among the other issues that are being addressed in recent research to improve adoption of these technologies. Most of the identified concerns lies upon the responsibility of manufacturers and industry actors, but policymakers should maintain balance and promulgate regulations to allow for the growth and adoption of these technologies. This study highlights several policy recommendations for the technology adoption of augmented and virtual reality.