
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 5, 1994                   TAG: 9411080017
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

THE DRILL

EVEN AS we try to renounce the tentacle-like grip television has on the imaginations of America's young (not to mention its middle-aged and its old), let us race to embrace its latest creeping advance: into the dentist's chair.

Time spent in the dentist's chair is not time that can be enhanced by running around outside, reading, or talking with friends and family, leading full lives in community with flesh-and-blood human beings. No, that time in the dentist's chair by its nature must be sedentary and silent, the only available diversions being sweating and spitting.

Until the coming of virtual reality.

Virtual reality is not brand, spanking new. Most people at least have seen the stereo headphones and goggle-like device that can be hooked into a 3-D electronic program. What is new is that this "big-screen TV on the forehead" is being marketed to dentists as a diversion for their patients.

If the dentists can work around all the headgear, their patients will be able to sort of enjoy themselves in the sort of real world of virtual reality. Long, grueling procedures, like root canals, will virtually fly by once the patient becomes engrossed in a movie. Might we recommend "Marathon Man"?

For shorter visits, perhaps a vintage "Gilligan's Island" episode. At last, such TV fare will have found its niche, a purpose for which it is uniquely suited: novocaine for the brain. No need for clinical tests. Most all of us have firsthand knowledge of its efficacy.

by CNB