#04 What is „immersion“? – desres23.designandcommunication.net

As I was thinking about what to write the next blog post about and in which direction to take my research, my attention got caught by a simple word: immersion. We hear and use it all the time. Every company wants to create immersive experiences with their marketing, and we say „that video game is immersive“.
But what does it mean really?
Why are some things considered immersive, and why aren’t others? And is it important when you think about therapy? Does it have to be immersive to produce therapeutic results?

When you ask google for a definition about immersion, the first result explains it like this:

the action of immersing someone or something in a liquid.
„his back was still raw from immersion in the icy Atlantic sea“

deep mental involvement in something.
„a week’s immersion in the culinary heritage of Puglia“

Oxford Languages Disctionary

For our case, the second definition is the far more interesting one. When we think of immersive experiences and what are also the first search results to come up are modern digital experiences. For example, light projection mappings in museums, VR/AR/XR experiences, video games, etc.
What I found interesting is that the definition characterizes it as „deep mental involvement in something“ and that something may be anything. We can find ourselves immersed in a book, for example, where there is no other external stimulus other than the words on the page. However, the images we create in our head, our imagination, can immerse us in these stories. We are solely focused on the story told, and we do not notice how much time passes. This „flow state“ may also be the reason why we can get immersed in work as well.

In the modern media landscape, immersion is also often used to describe interactive media. Media forms where the viewer also becomes a participant and can influence the media in some way, i.e. the viewer has some level of autonomy in what is created. I mentioned some types like these above. For example, video games, light mapping installations, virtual reality applications, etc.

One concrete example would be the ARTE museum in Gangneung, South Korea. Here visitors find themselves in environments made up of huge displays and light mappings where they can get lost in otherworldly surroundings. Through both visual and auditive stimulation the visitor can feel completely involved i.e. immersed.

When it comes to therapy, the term „immersion therapy“ crops up. This describes a more intense form of exposure therapy. Depending on the devices used it may also be called „virtual reality exposure therapy“. The patient is put into a virtual environment which can be used to, in a very controlled way, expose him*her to their fears. Because the patient is more stimulated/immersed than via more traditional methods, this form of therapy seems to prove quite effective. This immersion is especially useful when treating mental problems such as PTSD or phobias, but may be less necessary when dealing with physical ailments.
This topic of „immersion therapy“ is a vast and very interesting topic and this has just been a short overview (but it might be an interesting topic for further exploration. Maybe in an upcoming blog post…).

To summarize, immersion is something that happens when we are deeply mentally involved in something. This can be when we are stimulated by our own thoughts (e.g. reading a book) or from exterior stimuli (e.g. video game: visuals, audio, touch of input device, …). For therapy, it can help to make these processes more intense but also controllable.