My first experience with VR reminded me of when 3-D glasses became popular, you'd see an entire cinema of people reaching out and trying to grasp at objects that weren't really there -- which parallels my unwavering and unsuccessful efforts to touch everything in VR scenes. Of course, VR is a different level of immersion.

I find myself easily immersed in virtual environments -- in an underwater VR app, I actually started and almost fell out of my chair when a shark tried to bite me.

One of the main things that throws me off and disengages me from the scene is poor visual quality. It's obviously very difficult to feel present in a pixelated mess. Having tried several VR apps with and without headphones (for comparison), audio is definitely a huge part of what makes an environment believable... If I can see someone's lips moving, I'd better be able to hear them too. Otherwise, it feels like I'm half in the real world and half in VR.

Another issue is a lack of full coverage in filming/creating VR scenes. In several videos, I've looked around to wonderful scenery only to look up and see a blurry grey mass where the sky should be. In order to make content immersive, VR creators have to be thorough.

At this stage, when the majority of people probably haven't tried VR yet, a good storytelling method is to keep the viewer aware of the fact that they are in a 360 environment. For example, in a nature scene, if I hear a bird tweeting behind me, I'll automatically turn around and therefore engage with the environment. Basically, VR creators should take advantage of the fact that it's VR and utilize the space.

I definitely felt present in the HTC Vive apps I tried. Though there were a few glitches, being able to interact with the space and move through it made all the difference in terms of immersion. Aperture Robot Repair was particularly vivid. The high quality of the animation and attention to detail made it very easy to feel immersed in the game.

The most important thing to keep in mind while trying virtual reality apps and games is that the whole field is a work in progress. Though I occasionally find myself disengaged from content (mainly because of poor video/CGI quality), it's quite easy to get immersed in VR experiences even at this early stage in the field's development.