The metaverse is a general term for virtual worlds in which people, disguised by avatars, can do regular things… virtually. They can make purchases (with cryptocurrency), work, play, and live their virtual “life.” Not only is this concept utterly ridiculous to the majority of people, its insanely expensive as well. Mark Zuckerberg is spending over a billion dollars per month on the metaverse. His company, Meta, lost $13.7 billion in 2022.

Virtual Reality

The metaverse only proves that people have too much time on their hands. It’s essentially a multiplayer, VR version of The Sims, and the upper class is treating it like the greatest thing since sliced bread. Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of this, in my opinion, is the real estate market. The metaverse’s real estate market is currently worth over 1.4 billion dollars. It is predicted to grow to nearly $7 billion by 2026. People are spending millions of dollars on digital “property.” In virtual reality, you can look however you want and do whatever you want. If this becomes more mainstream, people will only further distance themselves from reality. Hiding behind a screen, treating real life’s problems as something that simply disappears when they put on a VR headset. But our world’s problems are far from disappearing. War, poverty, climate change, hunger, crime. Running from our problems will only make them worse, and our tendency to do so shines a dim light on our future.

Privacy and Crime

VR headsets have many cameras and microphones, which collect data about the facial features and vocal qualities of the users. In the age of facial and vocal recognition, this presents a major problem for privacy and personal security. It also collects information about their surroundings, which is often their home. To add insult to injury, the amount of data required to identify a user is embarrassingly little. Identity theft has never been so easy. Even if the user turns off the cameras and microphones, the headset will only work if the “simple motion data” is on. In other words, the technology that tracks the movement of the user’s head and hands. Turns out, this data alone is enough to identify one user out of thousands.

The metaverse is enabling p*dophilia and child abuse. Social media has already allowed a growing number of child abuse cases. People post pictures and videos of their children online, where anyone can see them. Poorly regulated online chatrooms have led to thousands of cases of grooming. The metaverse makes this problem worse, as its design has made it nearly impossible to identify child abuse and grooming.

Conclusion

Despite all of this, the metaverse does have some good aspects to it. It allows for far more jobs to be done from home. There is also much innovation in terms of education. People can learn from home, while virtually in a classroom with other students. Visual and interactive learning is still possible without having to leave your home. But, we have far to go before this technology can be used for good. Without proper security measures, this technology is unsafe and impractical. We also have many problems in the real world that we need to focus on solving, not trying to escape them. Still, this technology is impressive, and it may be the start of a new frontier for education, the workforce, and life as we know it.