Why the metaverse shouldn’t exist? (PART 2: Social)
The metaverse looks like a deep absurdity that shouldn’t exist, yet is inescapable in the history of our techno-centric society. There, it is said. We will have to deal with it, and for that I work hard every day to prepare for it and support the HR function and the organisations. But it may be good to remember why we would have done without this innovation. After a Part I on the environmental issues, here is the next part, which approaches the social reasons. A final part will address the economic reasons.
The Metaverse: A Mental Health Risk
In 2021, an ExpressVPN survey conducted in several countries including France, revealed that 93% of young people aged 16 to 25 believe that social networks negatively affect their mental health, mainly by increasing anxiety. Nearly two-thirds of young people surveyed say they spend at least an hour a day on TikTok alone.
Gartner predicts that by 2026, a quarter of the population will spend at least an hour a day in the metaverse. We can easily imagine that this is not likely to solve the problem, far from it! If the metaverse is as addictive as TikTok and social media, chances are its effects on mental health are comparable…and probably even worse.
Indeed, when you evolve in the metaverse, you are represented by an avatar that you create from scratch. In most metaverses, you will have complete freedom to define how it looks. This precise point will imply two major consequences.
The first consequence is that to exist socially, you will have to follow the current fashion in the metaverse: latest trendy pants, Gucci bag, Chanel glasses, etc. All these objects will be NFTs offered by fashion players. Many virtual fashion accessories are already offered for sale, often at prices comparable to those in the real world.
If you are not easily influenced, this is not the case for hundreds of millions of people, for whom fashion is a source of identity recognition. But faced with the need to maintain two wardrobes, which one will they prefer? That of the real world, or that of the virtual world? The answer will be where they are most likely to be noticed, and that place will be the metaverse.
The second consequence stems from the very fact of having two identities. Of course, it’s unfortunate to neglect his real outfit in favor of his virtual outfit, but that’s not the root of the problem. Having a double identity risks causing severe mental health problems for users, especially among the most vulnerable. With the metaverse, you can choose to be whoever you want, a bit like on social networks, but with a projection capacity unmatched until now — except in certain video games perhaps.
Several studies have been conducted on the mental health of players of World of Warcraft, one of the most addictive multiplayer games ever created in the early 2000s. These studies evoke many effects: disconnection with reality, dissociability, loss of motivation , loss of appetite, increased anxiety, disruption of many biological cycles. In an environment even more immersive than WoW, we can expect to find all these negative effects on users in a state of addiction.
For each disorder, physical or mental, it will be necessary to ensure a treatment or a protocol with an effect in the real world. In addition to all the elements mentioned in this chapter, adding this constraint on the system seems cumbersome, and could be avoided. In a world where the metaverse will exist despite everything, it will therefore be a question of being able to detect users at risk very early on, and to support them effectively to avoid an infernal spiral from which they will struggle to emerge on their own, and which will cost society dearly. .
Critical social issues to be addressed now
The state in which we have put our planet is extremely worrying, because human beings need very specific conditions to survive, which are found on only a few planets. This aspect is enough to demonstrate that we have other priorities to manage before the metaverse. But even without that, there are still many other reasons to put forward!
One of them concerns the social issues of our civilization, which it is urgent to take care of to avoid irremediable social disintegration. For lack of time, and because the subject is widely covered elsewhere, I will go to the essentials in this article. May the purists and connoisseurs forgive me!
According to the UN World Food Program or WFP, at the end of 2021, 43 countries were threatened with acute food insecurity, causing a situation of famine for nearly 50 million people around the world. Nearly $7 billion has been invested in 2021 to fight this famine.
If we take the previous example of the acquisition of virtual reality headsets for all 30 million French workers, we arrive at approximately the same amount. In other words, equipping all French workers with VR headsets is equal to fighting a full year against world famine.
If we look a step further, without talking about famine, nearly 780 million people (11% of the world’s population) live in extreme poverty, the threshold of which is below 1.90 dollars. to live. Even a step further, there are 3.4 billion people (or 44% of the world’s population) who live on less than 5.5 dollars a day.
In both cases, whether with $1.9 or $5.5, this is the total budget available per person for housing, food and clothing. Who today can claim to live all costs included for barely 50 euros per month, regardless of the country?
To access the metaverse, it is necessary to have a high-speed Internet connection and a compatible terminal. Whether for immersive access via VR headset, or classic access on a computer or mobile screen, this implies having access to technological equipment, and to a source of energy to keep it charged. That’s far more than half the planet can afford.
An alarming situation even in France
We can also look at the situation more locally, and take the example of France. In France, the poverty line is set by INSEE at 34 euros per day. A person is said to be poor if their income is less than 60% of the median standard of living of the population. In 2021, the National Council for the Fight against Poverty and Social Exclusion, or CNLE, announced the figure of 12 million French people living below the poverty line, i.e. nearly 18.5% of the national population.
Among these people, more than 300,000 are homeless, living in total social exclusion. 7.2% of people are in a situation of both material and social deprivation, material deprivation and poverty in living conditions. 2.6% are in a situation of material and social deprivation but do not combine either with poverty in living conditions or with material deprivation.
In March 2022, to raise awareness of the dissonance between these socio-economic issues and the large sums invested in the creation of the metaverse, the Entourage association carried out an awareness-raising operation by creating Will, the first homeless person of the metaverse. This same association made a name for itself a few years ago by creating the social network LinkedOut, proposing to use the concept of the network to promote social inclusion, rather than to be promoted on Linkedin.
A social gap that is growing hour by hour around the world
In 2022, the Oxfam association highlights in a report the widening of the gap between rich and poor. The figures are edifying: every 30 hours, a person becomes a billionaire. Meanwhile, every 33 hours, someone falls into extreme poverty somewhere in the world.
Since 2020, more than 65 billionaires have emerged, making their fortunes with the agribusiness industry. Over the same period, the prices of basic foodstuffs have soared, and the specter of a food crisis has become one of the most pressing issues in the world. The world has nearly 2,700 billionaires, whose combined fortunes represent around 15% of the world GDP.
Initiatives such as Entourage and Oxfam are numerous around the world; but with or without them, the metaverse is on its way. And from what we see, it does not seem to have as its vocation the fight against economic or social poverty. Without the resolution of these major issues, the metaverse will be the kingdom reserved for the luckiest half of the planet, a place of entertainment and productivity for the happy few.
This new cultural space will make it possible to acquire the codes of the new world; those who cannot access it risk finding themselves excluded or invisible to the rest of the population. Unless the metaverse directly and actively promotes social inclusion and the fight against poverty, it will only widen the gap between those who have access to progress and those who do not.
For a socially inclusive and useful metaverse
Tomorrow, the new codes of culture and economic and social enrichment will probably be found in the metaverse, and those who do not have access to them will be even more marginalized than today. It is therefore urgent to advocate for a metaverse as a place of inclusion: that major initiatives be taken so that metaverses allow people to maintain or regain a sustainable social situation in the real world! Only then will the virtual world perhaps, and I mean perhaps, be of interest.
On the other hand, whatever the nature of the metaverse, it will be necessary to have a sufficiently powerful Internet connection. By default, this now excludes billions of people, especially in the most disadvantaged countries and regions. Even if the quality of Internet connection improves every year in the world, it will probably take another one to two decades at least for this quality to be sufficient for the greatest number.
To counterbalance the pessimistic nature of this article, it is good to remember that the rate of equipment of the populations will be a subject that the actors of the metaverse themselves will put a high point to settle. As with mobile phones, the Internet connection, helmets and glasses are entry points to this new economy. Everything will be done so that everyone can consume, we can be ‘reassured’ on this point.
On a more positive note, it is possible to imagine very virtuous and positive use cases, which will allow very immersive scenarios, likely to train and support millions of people in the acquisition of skills or new social codes. . Such a practice could prove useful in strengthening the action of social workers and organisations. If all is not rosy, it should be possible to extract some advantages from this technological surge! Also, it is interesting to take a closer look at the interest of certain technologies implemented to enable the metaverse, as well as the 15 principles of an acceptable metaverse.
In the next article, we will discuss the economic reasons why the arrival of the metaverse is not the best news. Once again, the goal with this series of articles is neither to criticize nor praise the metaverse, but simply to take a step back. By becoming aware of the good and bad aspects, it becomes possible to position oneself in a mature way, with the perspective necessary to integrate the metaverse into our lives and those of our loved ones.
I hope this new article has enlightened youa bit further. We still have a little time, and tomorrow is another day, but it’s also already tomorrow! Tomorrow is only a day away…
— —
If you are interested in the combination of web 3 with HR, I invite you to subscribe to the dedicated newsletter that I keep writing on the subject, and to read the articles that I have written on the topic:
