Technology changes the perception of consciousness

I don't recall exactly, how old I was, when fantasizing about different computer user-interface technologies, but I finally got to the point of connecting the user-interface cables directly to nerves/brain. It was not an excersise in Sci-Fi (what I am not a great fan of) , but a consequential thinking project - how to get an even better visual, audible etc interface to computers or video and audio devices. At some point I had collected lots of information about experimental holographic visual reproduction systems and near-reality audio reproduction systems consisting of hundreds of loudspeakers. No problem with these. It got more difficult with senses like smell, taste, temperature, tactile, cinestetic and all the rest. It was not a big problem regarding voice recognition and basic machine vision but the difficult part again was to provide full body motion input. So, not Sci-Fi but a result of a long thinking process fed by technical and popular science magazines. Now think of the consequences. Suppose we have the connectors on our body or it is even wireless and we have the device that emulates the reality. There are myriads of developers for that virtual environment. Where does it lead to? Yes, correct - a big part of us do not need reality anymore or reality just becomes a very elitarian entertainment, maybe even too costly to afford. It takes time or some very good reasons to reach the point where the real-real world as we know is just a huge repository of interconnected VR computers and brains floating in tissue culture media. Is this just wild fantasy or a thing quietly happening under our own eyes? I guess, yes. The foremost area of development is game technology or the virtual environment where all this will start to happen. Give it another 10 years to develop and we have a place to be in. The user-interface technologies is a little bit bigger question mark. What is the most crucial point is actually the social/economic/political reasons to start mass-adopting this technology and say, erecting VR brain repositories. Some people, like game addicts would welcome readily this brave new world. Of course, there will be human rights and health activists etc. The more important part is, what could be the practical reasons (may be not as brain repositories, but at least with connectors on our necks):

1. Good entertainment, amongst other ways of relaxing;
2. A more feasible / efficient working environment for some professions. Reality is not just the right place for some jobs;
3. Addicts;
4. A way to gain control over the minds of a bunch of people (and how to protect against this power);
5. A neat way to solve population/urbanization/consumption problems

But I think, the most important reason is not in this list. What is it? This technological possibility, actually gave part of an answer to my philosophical wanderings during the high-school. One of the big questions in philosophy is "What is reality?". Actually, the mere possiblity that we already are just a repository of neatly interconnected brains and VR computers and there is no way to prove the contrary, puts the whole classic discussion about reality under question. The Fine Print: Later I discovered that the Russian Sci-Fi writers Brothers Strugatsky had this concept in one of their novels. Also, lately I discovered that the movie Matrix is based on this concept. Finally: Read once again the heading of this post.