From Ivan Sutherland to The Matrix, here you will find an overview of the history of VR over the past 40 years.	It is difficult to comprehend how VR systems will effect humankind in the future without an understanding of how VR functions today.	Where will we be in 50 years? If the past 50 years are any example, we will be in a whole new reality.	VR will undoubtedly create a vast assortment of new social benefits and problems. It is imprtant that we understand what the concerns are now, so we are better prepared for the future.

[Virtual Reality] is not just a tool; it is at once technology, medium, and engine of social relations. It not only structures social relations, it is the space within which the relations occur and the tool that individuals use to enter that space. It is more than the context within which social relations occur, for it is commented on and imaginatively constructed by symbolic processes initiated and maintained by individuals and groups. (Mayer 1999)