Metaverse or meta-averse

As a digital innovation consultant, I am convinced technology can improve our quality of life. The current shift to the metaverse, however, leaves me feeling distinctly technophobic every so often. I believe that the rise of virtual worlds can pose a threat to our physical and mental wellbeing.

But first, let’s take a step back: what is a metaverse? The term is based on the word "meta", meaning “beyond, higher, or through reality” in the Greek language. A metaverse is a virtual 3D environment that consists of several spaces in which you can look around, move, and interact with others using avatars. You can, for example, hang out with friends, play games together, go shopping or attend concerts. In a professional context, the metaverse could be a place to hold your meetings.

Metaverse developers, after all, know that their target market has the urge to escape their – sometimes not so pleasant – reality and change their identity to be able to do things anonymously. One of the tricks is to use handy avatars to allow us to easily assume different roles – with the danger that we slowly lose our real identity in the process.

The worlds they create is entirely modelled after our personal utopia. In this world, everything is possible and we don’t have to suffer the consequences of our actions. Of course, it is an outlet for our creativity, but our imagination can be seriously distorted. When everything is possible, this can blur our boundaries. Indeed, the first case of sexual harassment has already occurred in the metaverse.

Covid-19 has played a crucial role in this. People are spending more time at home and seeking distraction in better virtual worlds. To safeguard the future of his company, Zuckerberg is only too pleased to let us believe that the metaverse, and in particular his Meta, is the next big thing.

With Meta, Facebook is trying to stymie new parties’ entry into the market to further strengthen and expand its monopoly. The Meta moniker also allows it to find a new avenue for privacy-sensitive face-recognition technology. Experimental VR headsets are, for example, already able to capture facial expressions and emotions. Nothing could be more appealing than letting us make a full digital twin of ourselves and reconstruct our entire physical living environment in a virtual world.

And therein lies the rub. Because any data that is currently lacking, we will serve on a platter, to the detriment of our own privacy. This extra data guarantees existing income streams for Meta and offers new advertising possibilities, such as metaverse billboards with personalised ads.

Is this really the path we want to go down? Do we want to allow virtual environments to take the upper hand over our primary world with deep human interaction – especially now that we know the former is harder to regulate – let alone allow one single company to take the reins? When we think about the drastic consequences, is this really what we want?

In the future, we will have to learn to cope with these dangers. The challenge for both people and governments will reside in making the metaverse a safe environment to be in. This calls for debate – not least to ensure that young people don’t lose and alienate themselves in it.

Life can’t always be a constant party. Learning to cope with small or major mishaps is part of life, and escaping to an ephemeral ideal world controlled by commercial businesses is not the solution. Neither is making a virtual copy of yourself, it is important to evolve as a real person, through all of life’s ups and downs, to a better version of yourself who lives in the here and now.