The Metaverse Pros & Cons
Positive & negative effects on human evolution
You surely heard or read about this new topic, the metaverse, one that seems to be all over the news headlines since Facebook itself has started the transition to the metaverse. It’s happening, but right now we are still in the incipient phase.
If you want to know details about Facebook’s transition to the metaverse, you can read them here:
There is a theory among scientists about the existence of other civilizations in the universe, a possible answer to the question “Why has no civilization contacted us yet?” being that civilizations after they evolve enough, tend to take refuge in virtual worlds. The real universe is too hostile and large to be explored, or at least this is what I remember reading.
If this is the case, maybe our civilization is just starting to follow this evolutionary pattern. We are just at the beginning of building our metaverse.
The Metaverse Is Inevitable
When I heard the term metaverse for the first time, I instantly understood what is referring to.
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 created each by specific apps, games, or simulations and the whole thing can be called a metaverse.
What we see now is just the very beginning, but I 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.
The Bright Side of the Metaverse
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.
You can read more about Decentraland here:
I believe the metaverse can have the following pros:
- bring people together
- create lots of fun
- offer that mysterious aura of alien worlds
- make everything more enjoyable and more interesting
- improve work at home and home schooling
The Ugly Side of the Metaverse
In my perspective, the ugly side of the metaverse is the separation that will happen 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.
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.
In my opinion, the metaverse can have the following cons:
- generate addiction
- make you lose track of time
- separate you from the real nature and the real world
- overstimulate your senses
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. I bet that it will happen just like with the other innovations. Some will use the metaverse for good and others, for bad things.
We are experiencing the beginning of the next step in our history. Let’s embrace it!
