Metaverse - Is our reality getting virtual?

Have you ever felt like your life has become tedious because you iterate the same stuff of work everyday? Do you want to be in a place where you could cope with all your problems and solace yourself by enjoying yourself with your loved ones anywhere you love to be? You've probably tried to attain it by getting engaged in social media, but have you ever wondered if there is something beyond where you could go anywhere you like while sitting in your home. And this is what Metaverse does.

What is Metaverse?

    The metaverse is a pseudo physical interaction of people in a digitalized fictional universe in the form of Avatars(3 Dimensional forms). It is an embodiment of Augmented reality(AR), Visual reality(VR), and Mixed Reality(MR) that gives you a feeling of being in a place with actually not being there. It integrates the fictional world with the real world that can be accessed by us in any form that we want to be. 

The social connection will be taken to the next level by Metaverse:

     We, people, are socially engaged with each other via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc., but Metaverse takes it to the next level by giving us the experience of having 3D visual contact with each other in the form of customizable Avatars just by wearing a VR set. 

Facebook turns to META:

    On 28th October 2021 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg heralded his company’s new name, META stating the creation of their Metaverse, on a virtual event. It was during the event Mark introduced The Horizon home, a place that you will see at first wearing the VR set, and The Horizon world, where you could create your world. It was even said that by the upcoming year they will make their premium VR sets named project Cambria. Despite releasing their new VR set, they are even working on their augmented reality glasses, named the Nazare glasses, nevertheless.

Why did they change to META?

    To consolidate social media with Virtual and Augmented reality, and to make things even futuristic they did this set out their platform in Metaverse rebranding them as META. Even the problems that they had with the privacy concern previously as Facebook might have made them do such things to overcome those difficulties. But the answer to this question may differ from one’s perspective about Facebook and hence it should not be deliberately told something bad or good about them.

Advantages of Metaverse:

    There are many undeniable advantages to Metaverse. Some of them are:

Experience anything that you like to have:

    You can do anything as your wish in Metaverse, like having a real 3D gaming experience, optimizing your surrounding, real-time virtual chatting with your friends, and much more that you would have never experienced previously. You could make all your dreams come true like traveling to remote places, surfing in Hawaii, etc., in Metaverse.

Design yourself in any Avatar form as you like:

    In a Metaverse, you will be in a 3 Dimensional instead of 2 Dimensional and hence you could design yourself in a way that you like to be in 3D form. It’s even not necessary to be in a human form, but even in any form that you want to be like animals, birds, or even any creature that you create.

It enhances our knowledge:

    Library became old-fashioned when Google came in because we could solve all our doubts just by asking Google rather going to the library. But now Metaverse would make Google outdated if we could virtually see something in 3D form with an explanation. It will even get you to the sun or any part of our solar system or beyond, to enhance your comprehension of any topic that you are obscure about.

Fiction will no longer be fictional in Metaverse:

    All the elements that you find fictional now will no longer be fictional as even you could experience such fictional things in your Metaverse. Teleportation is yet a hypothesis in the real world, but in a Metaverse, you could go anywhere in just a snap or even you can terraform your place as your desire.

Helps in the betterment of our environment:

    Any products that get created in the real world leave a lot of waste with C02 emission subsequently accumulates in our environment destroying it. But this is not the case in Metaverse as everything is completely digital, its negative impact on the environment is negligible.

Growth of new economy:

   When people engage themselves in Metaverse it even unleashes a new way of trading prelude to our current online business or merchandise. People can sell their virtual goods in Metaverse like Avatar outfits, created new places, etc., where cryptocurrencies and NFT play a vital role. Digital artists or graphic designers may find NFT super useful in Metaverse as it protects the authenticity of their virtual products. 

It makes us productive:

    If we could make anything faster than our normal capabilities then we can attain our destined goal effortlessly and this is what Metaverse is trying to do. As Covid has made us work from home, META helps you to have an office-like ambiance where can engage with your colleagues like how you normally do. This is just one of their many innovations that helps us make productive.

The dark side of Metaverse:

   On the other hand, there are even some menacing problems with Metaverse that one cannot deny. 

Data and privacy concerns:

    Facebook had already been poor in managing their user’s personal information and now it's even more intimidating seeing them as META. Meta is completely a way different from Facebook. On Facebook, you just post some pics of yourself and give some personal information like email ID and other such things, but in a Metaverse, you will be living inside it, even allowing META to access your brain information. This may sound weird or daunting but Meta could even measure your brain giving us a whole new level of threat. 

The problem with Avatar customization:

   If one can change himself as he like, then how could you believe in someone if he/she is a human or just a META bot that wants you to spend more time on that platform. Or others might even scam you getting disguised as your friends or relatives. 

Mental depression:

     In a metaverse, you might be living in a bungalow, owning thousands of cars with many friends, but your real life would not be as good as in your metaverse. Hence, you may end up getting depressed, eventually getting addicted to the metaverse, spoiling all your work and duties that you have to do in your real world.

 Job loss:

   The success of the metaverse will have a greater impact on most menial jobs. If the metaverse becomes our future, then we may only require people who have got enough knowledge to create new digital stuff or to handle the metaverse, ultimately putting an end to most of the real jobs.  

    Metaverse has got many good things to talk about, but it even innates some truly intimidating problems that put off one’s sleep at night. In the end, one may raise the question If Metaverse is a real technological revolution or a human trap? From a spectator's view like us, it’s difficult to answer this question but, the only thing that I could say is 

Virtuality can never become our reality.