It seems highly likely 5-10 years from now you will be able to wear a device that is comfortable and unobtrusive that can deliver the presence of any other connected user to you instantly, including body language and full spatial awareness. In such a world where these devices exist, it would be pretty stunning to think people would not use them regularly for such purposes.
There are a few things that make it less convenient. One of them like you pointed out is the size and comfort issues but there are other issues. VR/AR chats require your full attention / real time communication. Most communication has left phone calls and moved to asynchronous communication methods. Another is limitations of the space, people spend a large % of there communication time on public transport, instant messaging translates well to this since it requires no listening or making noise and requires minimal space. Full body tracking and spacial awareness is useless when you are sitting down.
I think if people really wanted to primary communicate with facial/avatar awareness, we would see everyone using video calls over social media and IMs.
I think VR/AR communication has some place in the future but I do not see it becoming a serious/primary communication tool.
I'm confused, are you arguing that video calls are not a primary communication tool? If avatar based comms became as common as video calls I'd consider that a primary tool.
Besides, the idea is not that this would meaningfully displace existing media (except perhaps video for some use-cases), but provide a fundamentally new medium for communication that has no present day analog other than face-to-face. Much like current tools, you'd use it when it is the ideal context and situation for it to be maximally useful.
Video calls and other media have distinct tradeoffs, and are objectively worse than face-to-face along a variety of dimensions.
The argument is simple, if you believe:
- people value face-to-face over existing digital communication tools for certain contexts
- VR and AR based communication meaningfully approaches face-to-face in certain ways that existing tools do not
- VR and AR technology will eventually get to a point where it is ubiquitous
Then it seems that tech will be used for those purposes. Either of the latter two assumptions could be wrong, but early research [1] supports the argument of first, and based upon the tech track the second seems highly likely.
