Imagine being immersed in an interactive virtual simulated reality where you will be working, building relationships, and playing games. A science-fiction dream not far from turning into a reality. Fascinating you’d say, though, is it a step further to disconnect us from reality? This phenomenon is called the Metaverse, a virtual universe, in which we will be represented through avatars or holograms, and we can interact with each other as if we are absorbed in a futuristic game.
The new paradigm will seamlessly blur out the lines between our physical reality and digital virtuality, combining various different platforms ranging from gaming, retail, and education, to perhaps entirely new experiences (Mystakidis, 2022). Technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence deem such an interconnected web of information and communication feasible (Lee et al., 2021). While the concept of the metaverse, now at its earlier stages, continues to be advanced and developed, it will certainly be the next disruption of the internet. In particular, as already more than 120 billion dollars, this year alone, is invested to further refine the infrastructure and technology (McKinsey & Company, 2022).
So, how, for instance, can we imagine such a world? To illustrate, you have designed your own dream home in the virtual world, where you can invite your metaverse friends over to have a chat. They will appear virtually, in avatars or holograms made available through augmented, mixed, and virtual reality, at your home. You can thus socialize, but also do some business, shop, game, and many other things like in real life. To put it easy, it is essentially the same as living your life in reality, but without physical boundaries. Accordingly, it is living in a parallel world where you can create a life you have always dreamed of.
But, isn’t it another way of keeping people detached from the actual reality of touching, feeling, and real presence in the world? I certainly do think so. It may have sounded quite fascinating, though if we look at the world today and where it is headed, I am worried that the metaverse will be creating a very distorted dystopian future. The new generation will not fully experience real freedom any more, when living in such a virtual world.
What do you think, is the metaverse going to be a hope or doom for the future generation?
References
Lee, L. H., Braud, T., Zhou, P., Wang, L., Xu, D., Lin, Z., … & Hui, P. (2021). All one needs to know about metaverse: A complete survey on technological singularity, virtual ecosystem, and research agenda. arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.05352.
McKinsey & Company. Meet the metaverse: Creating real value in a virtual world. (2022). McKinsey & Company. Retrieved 12 September 2022, from https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/new-at-mckinsey-blog/meet-the-metaverse-creating-real-value-in-a-virtual-world
Mystakidis, S. (2022). Metaverse. Encyclopedia, 2(1), 486–497. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia2010031
I fully agree with you Mila! I think it is one of the biggest and only disadvantages of technological development but as we know, nobody can or will stop this future we are headed towards. The best we can hope for is educating and raising next generations with this future in mind, teaching them to live in the real life, the Metaverse and all other technologies being seen only as entertainment, not as an escape from reality. I think the best we can hope for is for Mark Zuckerberg to be right, with future VR and AR applications such as the Metaverse only being a much richer and social rewarding replacement for current things that have become an escape from reality such as social media and video games.
Very interesting read! I agree with you on the fact that the Metaverse is going to be a doom for the future generation. For many years, the concept of Metaverse sounded like a fascinating idea. However, the closer we get to the release of Metaverse, the more worried we should be. If you want to socialise with friends or familiy, why would you do that in the Metaverse and not with real people in real life? Socializing online and not in real life seems incredibly hollow. You completely isolate yourself from your community and from human touch. Furthermore, the Metaverse can cause the future generation to give up on their own lives and only focus on their virtual live. This can cause their insecurity levels to increase and their self respect to decrease, because they want to become someone else and live a total different life in the Metaverse than in real life. I hope that this situation will not become reality and that future generation knows the importance of real life (compared to virtual life).