Metaverse – A Virtual Paradise Or A Digital Disaster - sortedcord | A programmer with a focus on visual identity, creativity and utility.

In today’s digital world, it is very likely to come across the word ‘Metaverse’. Many people call it the future of the digital world, while others just call it another online fad similar to NFTs. A lot of us disregard it before even knowing what it really is which is why we see a lot of confusing takes on what the metaverse really means.

We’ve gone from desktop to web to mobile; from text to photos to video. But this isn’t the end of the line. The next platform will be even more immersive—an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it. We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build.

Mark Zuckerberg

In the real world, we can have our universe and other universes, parallel or not to ours, and we call all this a multiverse. In virtual reality, we can consider different universes each created by specific apps, games, or simulations and the whole thing can be called a metaverse.

In retrospect, talking about this ideal metaverse sounds a bit like having a discussion on what the internet would look like in the 1970s. All those retro neon aesthetics can make most of us feel nostalgic, and it seems that the concept of metaverse is bringing this aesthetic back to the future. So, can we say that metaverse does live up to its hype? Not quite. To help you get an experience of how vague and complex a term “the metaverse” may be, here’s a workout to strive: Mentally update the phrase “the metaverse” in a sentence with “cyberspace”.That’s because the metaverse doesn’t mean just one single technology, instead a broad shift in how we use and interact with technology as well as what technology represents when we think of it in our mind. And it’s entirely possible that the term itself will eventually become just as antiquated, even as the specific technology it once described becomes commonplace. The tech savvy ones may relate metaverse with VR headsets which is why saying that metaverse is just a rebranded version of VR may not be completely incorrect.

So what’s the reason behind the metaverse popularity boom? It all started with the renaming of the facebook company to meta. It may seem absurd, but Mark Zukerberg believed that the metaverse was destined for the future of technology and took the step which he thought would distinguish his company from the rest. Fortnite, Minecraft, and Animal Crossing are games now but they already have big user bases, detailed worlds, and user-generated content. Facebook is also positing itself towards the metaverse with its virtual reality social media platform, Horizon (currently in beta), and Live Maps. Niantic, Magic Leap, Microsoft and many others are working on it too.

What we see now is just the very beginning, but we found out that the metaverse is meant to be more than the multitude of game universes. It is the combination of virtual reality, augmented reality, and physical reality. In other words, the metaverse is something beyond the universe, from the Greek word meta, meaning beyond. One of the cool things about the metaverse is that it will allow people to experience an endless virtual world, where they can do things they only dreamed of using an avatar. Just as an example, you will be able to create your favorite relaxing spot in nature, but this nature will be virtual. You will be able to change the scenery just as you would change the wallpaper on your laptop. It is like the internet on a completely new level, 3D and fully immersive.

A more rudimentary version of the metaverse concept can be seen in the game Decentraland, an open world where you can choose an avatar, play games, attend concerts, meet people, mine, make NFT wearables, explore, etc. The core advantage of the metaverse is the identification and realization of novel applications that would revolutionize the way individuals use the internet and other related digital communication technologies. Similar to the advantages of Web 2.0 and social media, the concept will bring forth new value-creating digital products and services with practical applications.

Zuckerberg and the people behind Meta Platforms recognize the capability of technology to allow people to connect and express themselves more naturally. But current social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, as well as communication platforms such as Zoom restrict digital human interaction within a two-dimensional plane.

Users of the aforementioned social media and communication platforms are limited to merely looking at their computer or mobile screens. However, a platform based on the metaverse will allow a more immersive experience by enticing a feeling of presence. Zuckerberg calls this an embodied internet in which the user is in the digital experience..

Metaverse will have a key role in bringing distant people together, make the experience way more fun as well as offer that mysterious aura of alien worlds and make everything more enjoyable and more interesting. Metaverse will also have a key role in revolutionizing education as it will improve work at home and homeschooling.

The ugly side of the metaverse is the separation that will take place between people and reality. It is that perspective in which technology fully catches human attention, distracting us from the real world completely. We will become addicted to the metaverse eventually and our children will grow with it. It might create the dystopia we all see in movies like Ready Player One. We could completely lose touch with what is real. Our life will be even more influenced and to a certain degree, straight up controlled by corporations whose incentives have nothing to do with our best interests. We won’t even really know what the person behind that avatar is actually saying. Is it just what Meta wants you to see so that you stay on the platform for longer?

I also know this is an inevitable direction in the evolution of the human species. Technology is in the end an extension of us and technology is our future. Even if some of us may not agree with this direction or may not like it at all, it is where we are heading. One of the disadvantages of the metaverse is that its implementation will require the introduction of advanced technologies. Of course, there are several technologies and standards or protocols that are already commercially available to implementers. However, the concept will require additional investments in developing newer technologies.

Consider better internet connectivity as a prime example. Participating in a shared virtual space will require reliable data transmission speed because it is graphically intensive. Current fiber-based broadband connectivity and 5G network technologies, especially the mmWave 5G network technology, may adequately support the realization of this concept.

But the fact remains that reliable services are still not accessible to a number of people around the world. In addition, enticing people to participate in the metaverse, as well as to utilize its benefits and applications, will require a wide scale deployment of better or advanced digital communication technologies by service providers and relevant government agencies.

The concept will also require next-generation digital communication tools or gadgetries. These items are not readily accessible to individuals and communities for the simplest reason that they either are still unavailable in the market or remain expensive. Failing to make them accessible will alienate several people from the promised benefits of the metaverse.

The metaverse can generate addiction and make one lose track of time. It is quite possible for the metaverse to be so immersive that it separates you from the real nature and the real world as well as overstimulates your senses.

One of the selling points of the metaverse is that it can improve the benefits of social media and existing online-enabled means of communication by introducing a more immersive way to interact and socialize with people online. However, a number of people have expressed concerns over this purported advantage or benefit.

Meta might not necessarily be the best thing for human society. All of the people who talk about metaverses are talking about worlds that are more satisfying than the current world.

Eric Schmidt (Ex Google CEO)

Schmidt noted that artificial intelligence, which is one of the underlying technologies for designing and running the metaverse, is a “giant false god” that can create unhealthy and parasocial relationships. He asked what an AI-enabled friend looks like, especially to a child, or if artificial intelligence perceives aspects of reality that people do not.

Other business leaders have also raised concerns about relevant technologies. For example, in a series of commentaries posted on his official Twitter account in February 2020, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk mentioned that confidence is “not high” in the transparency and safety of artificial intelligence within his own company.

To sum up, the metaverse is for sure the next big thing, the normal evolution of the internet. Just as computers were in the 80s, the internet was in the 90s, smartphones were after 2000, or the cryptocurrencies were in the last decade. How it will impact our lives, depends a lot on us, on how we will use it. Some will use the metaverse for good and others, for bad things.

We will start to see radical self-expression in these environments as people learn how to manipulate the virtual world around them using tools made for creators, by creators. If you don’t have time to create your own world, you can explore the worlds of others and even potentially use their creations as your own.

Every person will have a character that represents themselves in the Metaverse called an avatar. We will learn how to express pieces of ourselves through these avatars in ways that we may not have been able to test out before. Imagine the ability to try on different “skins” and how that might help you hold onto more confidence in the metaverse.

Public Opinions –

These interviews were conducted on different social media platforms and then summarized and paraphrased.

Interview 1 (B.Tech 3rd Year)

Interviewee: My views are going to be biased and not too factual since it was brought into the media’s attention by Mark Zukerberg who doesn’t really have a positive reputation when it comes to people’s privacy and sensitive data.

Interviewer: It is just because facebook is leading the movement, you are disinterested in the metaverse?

Interviewee: I’m not the kind of person to keep up with the latest internet trends. But, after watching a few videos about it (including the facebook one), I can’t get myself to be serious about this topic. It seems like a joke to me. Moreover a corporate company shouldn’t be the one leading the paradigm shift. Plus, Virtual Reality is nowhere near what I’d call acceptable, so I think that technology as a whole, still needs dramatic improvements to achieve what Facebook and others are claiming about the metaverse. It might just be that Facebook is desperately trying to look for other sources of income by ad revenue.

Interview 2 (IBM – Junior Software Dev.)

Interviewee: I’d rather take a neutral standpoint. Personally, I don’t like it, but the progression of technology is always nice.

Interviewer: Would you then call yourself being a bit on the conservative end of the spectrum then?

Interviewee: Not really as that’s usually the case with most emergent technology,

it’s always met with apprehension.

Interviewer: So, do you think that it’s incorrect for people to not take this, as you said, an emergent technology, seriously? There are people who disregard everything and just call it another internet trend.

Interviewee: To be fair, any progressive tech that is served directly to the common population will start a trend. But yes, this really might be where technology is going and to disregard that is to be what you called, “conservative”.

Interview 3 (Student)

Interviewee: Okay, to start off, I’m actually against it. I admit that they are innovating, but at what cost? What I’m really trying to say is that, will you be willing to trust a billionaire who already has a bad reputation to be given charge of all this? At the end of the day all they want is money. They think that since they have gotten a headstart in all this, it’s fair to just dilute everybody’s privacy.

Interviewer: The headstart that you’re talking about, does this have to do with the rebranding of the facebook company?

Interviewee: Rebranding doesn’t change anything. In actual sense, they are not doing anything to address the problem, instead they are avoiding it. To me, it feels like they rebranded themselves just to avoid bad press.

Interviewer: Can you please specify what problem you are talking about?

Interviewee: As I said before, you cannot become a millionaire just through ad revenue, so it’s common knowledge that Mark sells our data. Basically spying on his customers. I just don’t think that billionaires should be in charge of this, it gives them more power with less accountability.

Interviewer: So would you prefer something more decentralized?

Interviewee: Exactly.

Now, while the masses may get the idea of metaverse being bad from these interviews, we do have to keep in mind that we had a rather small sample space to work with. We conducted 7 interviews, and most of the people had similar views and thoughts on the topic.

However, personal opinions are just that: personal and, therefore, susceptible to personal bias. What does the general public think about the Metaverse, and do they believe that this virtual world has a future?

We also conducted online surveys where 180 individuals of varied ages and genders, all of whom were collected from Reddit and Discord, We asked a few questions geared around gathering information about public perception to the Metaverse. The results ended up being a rather mixed bag. While people did show optimism in terms of seeing the Metaverse actively running years ahead of our time, they were also concerned about the potential harm such a platform brings.

A rather significant 68% of the sample population actively believes that the Metaverse will prove harmful to its users. Of those 68%, common potential issues cited were addiction to the simulated virtual world (42%), a sharp increase in privacy issues (60%), and potential mental health ailments (55%).

It’s a rather worrying outlook that the population is painting for Metaverse and its potential future. However, how many users even believe that the currently unreleased platform will even have one? Well, it turns out that 46% of the population believes that users will heavily co-exist and function on virtual platforms in ten years’ worth of time, with only 18% of the population claiming that nothing of the sort will happen. Those aren’t perhaps the best numbers, but Meta’s probably pretty happy about the potentially addictive qualities of its platform. It’s not like the company particularly cares for its user base.

There are some good things that users expect from the Metaverse as well. 72% of individuals have admitted to health related issues that they believe would be mitigated at least within the virtual world. 52% of the population sees a lot of potential in terms of conducting online work, 37% of the population would like to use the technology to virtually travel across the globe, and 61% would love trying out extreme sports such as bungee jumping or skydiving within the safety of virtual confines.

Group Reflections

We believe that for better or for worse, the metaverse is humanity’s future even if the concept seems too abstract or too ahead of its time. Saying that Metaverse may be a future digital disaster makes for a very catchy title name, however, if we try to recall doesn’t this situation seem a bit similar to when the concept of AI was catching on to the mainstream platforms?

Even then we said that in future AI will surpass humanity and ultimately destroy it, however we don’t see that happening right or any signs of that happening in the future.

Through the metaverse, when we create our digital avatars, buy virtual goods, the goal is that it will translate back into our real life. If we have more confidence in the metaverse with our custom-designed avatar, having more confidence in real life more easily becomes a by-product.

Not only that, but the metaverse will create more jobs, hence benefit the economy as well. This will open the door for each of us to express ourselves more deeply, and it will allow people to bring all of themselves to work.

We are experiencing the beginning of the next step in our history. Let’s embrace it!

References-

Credits-

Aditya Gupta
Aditya Bibhas
Sashiv Chopra
Ojasw Kant
Archit Nirula

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Metaverse – A Virtual Paradise Or A Digital Disaster