The term ‘meta’ is a quantifier, which suggests an explicit awareness of itself. As such, it’s fascinating that Mark Zuckerberg opted to rebrand his company, which was responsible for creating the formative social media platform Facebook, to Meta in 2021. The timing of this is the most interesting thing about it; after having built Facebook into a culturally dominant force over the previous twenty years, changing the name to Meta implies an awareness of the system and its role within society.
The Metaverse and AR Contact Lenses
To this end, the creation of the metaverse was a long-dreamt-of thing. For as all-encompassing as social media can feel, prompting users with links that lead to everything from stores to banks, the idea for the metaverse was to literally put the user in the middle of their digital experience. This was a high-minded science-fiction concept long before it was reality, with the term ‘metaverse’ actually originating from the 1992 novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. In a manner very similar to what the companies behind generative artificial intelligence sought to do by co-opting a long-existing science-fiction term and making it the name of their new tool, the real-world metaverse aims to make people feel as if they are living inside of an idyllic future. And with new tech such as AR contact lenses, it just might succeed.
The metaverse is no longer just a futuristic concept; it’s becoming a growing digital ecosystem influencing how people work, socialize, learn, and shop. As immersive technologies evolve, they are redefining reality and raising new questions about identity, economy, and human connection.
Understanding the Metaverse and Its Real-World Impact
The metaverse is a network of interconnected virtual environments powered by AR, VR, and blockchain technologies. In essence, it seeks to take the multi-functional digital versatility of something like an online gaming experience or a social media platform, and turn it into something that the user can literally step inside of.
While this originated from a place of imaginative play, it has since evolved well beyond that. The metaverse is now an integral part of everything from education to business collaboration to social experiences and beyond.
Giving Meaning to Meta
One of the easiest ways to think about the term ‘meta’ is to see it in action in the field of entertainment. While there were a number of earlier precursors to it, one of the most popular and formative examples of a movie being meta came in the form of 1996, with Wes Craven’s Scream.
The film was a slasher horror film, written to be keenly aware of all of the various tropes and characterizations generally associated with horror movies. As such, after decades of much more straightforward horror films, Scream caught on like wildfire with audiences. Its winking, knowing humor allowed audiences to feel as if the film was on the same page as them, aware of its own existence within this genre and how it was both falling into and subverting the established tropes.
In many ways, the metaverse aims to be similarly aware of its own digital construct. Just as through acknowledging the inherent artifice of the film, Scream was able to get audiences to connect with it on another level, so too does the metaverse aim to transcend its digital constraints through a similar use of hyperawareness.
How Virtual Worlds Influence Human Behavior
When speaking about the metaverse, it’s important to consider how the digital world can influence real-world behavior. In the metaverse, users do not have to identify themselves. Just like an online gaming experience, users can cloak themselves behind avatars and digital personas. This can have drastic implications for how it changes the way people express identity, confidence, and social interaction.
Despite the differences between the two, several studies have shown that behavior in virtual spaces can affect real-world decision-making and relationships. While the interactions users have within the metaverse are entirely digital constructs, the humanity and emotion that exist within those constructs are still real and can have potent, long-lasting ramifications. This has only grown more true as the technology surrounding the digital experience has become more advanced; AR devices and the like have allowed people to feel that much more invested in the digital world.
The Economics of the Metaverse
Digital assets, NFTs, and virtual real estate are creating new forms of commerce and redefining what it means to have ownership of something. Each of these stems directly from the metaverse, where owning something digitally obviously does not always translate directly to traditional physical ownership of it. This is most apparent in NFTS, which have no real-world equivalent, but are valuable works of art within the metaverse all the same.
This brings many potential risks to the forefront, such as market volatility, fraud, and data privacy concerns. The metaverse is still in its infancy, with many of the rules and regulations still in need of further refining. However, what is there provides a study foundation and is already impacting the way that commerce and ownership are viewed in the real world.
The Future of Work and Education in Virtual Spaces
Businesses are adopting virtual offices for collaboration and immersive training. For instance, educational institutions are leveraging 3D environments for experiential learning. Through these innovative methods, the metaverse is helping to make all of the groundbreaking technological advancements of the last several years distinctly tactile and palpable, immersing users that much more into the digital landscape.
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