A message to human beings: I hope the metaverse doesn't work out.
Let's get more connected by staying away from each other. There's always a person in each era who would object to technological advancement. When the TV was invented, I'm sure there were journalists who attacked its invention as destroying the essence of live performances. Then humans invented the internet. It was more than a few journalists who as well attacked the idea of it. As a human, I feel that it’s only fair to address the metaverse as a technological wonder, and a fearsome possibility.
I'm a tech consultant, who is constantly fascinated by technology, and always seeks to evolve in this aspect. Yet, in this article, I'll be that guy. The human being who's doesn't want the metaverse to work out.
To be as accurate as possible, I'm not saying that I wish the metaverse would vanish from existence. Any technological advancement has pros and cons. The metaverse, as a concept, has tremendous opportunities and fantastic advancements could occur with its help.
However, there are such situations where the cons outweigh the benefits. There are numerous bad health effects that are caused by using smartphones for long times and binge-watching for example. These are examples of technological advancements, in which billion-dollar companies that exist for those reasons.
The Metaverse
The metaverse, as a plain concept, is a simulated digital reality for a human being. While that sounds straightforward since the applications of augmented and virtual reality are fantastic in many ways (some contribute to the health industry), this would lift the levels of usage of those technologies to borderline unhealthy. It's one thing to use augmented reality for a surgical operation for example, and another would be spending 5 hours per day in it.
"Come on, it won't happen that people would spend that much time in the metaverse!"
Let's time travel 10 years in the past, choose a random person from this planet, and inform her/him that in ten years, you'll be looking at your phone for around 4 hours per day.
Now, I'm telling you, "In 10 years, you will be in the metaverse for 8 hours per day".
This could lead in years to come to an evolution of a different kind. We would evolve as humans but we will lose the ability to form a human physical connection as good as we used to. Of course, this takes generations, but it had to have a starting point. A good example would be our physical size. As humans, we used to be bigger and stronger, as we needed to hunt and run.
Nowadays, were lighter and shorter than our ancestors due to the fact that we don't need to do that anymore.
It took humanity years to learn the best communications methodology. What we would be doing right now if we implement this "social metaverse" the way we implemented and adapted to "social media", is scrapping our initial knowledge and years of practice.
The metaverse should be controlled, but so does a lot of society's problems.
We're choosing to evolve in the social media aspect, connect further and more efficiently, even though our average depression rates and smartphone usage are increasing.
The Metaverse is not the problem.
Nuclear energy is not the problem.
Food is not the problem.
How humans react to the situation is the exact problem. Heart disease, in this day, is the number one human killer. There are various solutions to how a person could maintain a healthy lifestyle and avoid dying from heart disease. However, it takes humans time to learn how to do so.
We should control the metaverse when it integrates successfully with our social interactions and life. The moment someone says, "What? Physically Meet? Who does that? I'm in my house, here's my metaddress." - That's the moment that could be a starting evolutionary moment that leads to humans not knowing how to establish eye contact with one another.
The truth about our current society is that it's heavily influenced and controlled by the dominant tech businesses. If Facebook is applying its services to the metaverse, other companies will follow (and already have). When the new tinder is in the metaverse, millions will be already in the process.
Finally, when a person realizes a simple concept such as, "Why would I stay at home if I can go to the metaverse and observe the beauty of this designed universe?"
One would never settle for the humanly natural part surrounding oneself. We appreciate our surroundings because of our physical presence there at that moment, and because we don't have the ability to instantly teleport to the most beautiful beach in the world for instance.
The aim should be quite apparent by now. The metaverse is already here for each human. The timer of when more people will be hooked up on it has already begun. Yet, one has to raise awareness of how a person should limit his/her timing in the metaverse.
When you buy a pack of smokes, hopefully, you'll see the warning on the pack that this is not the healthiest habit to do. The only wish that I could ask for in this message, is that the metaverse would have this compulsory warning before initiation and would put the human health factor as equal to the entertainment factor of such technology.
I’m Al, a business consultant in Zurich, Switzerland. I believe in the power of delivering value to you, the reader. I’m focusing my content to be more and more on Medium, and Linkedin. Hence, follow me on both channels to keep in touch and connect.