Second Life debuted in 2003. I like to picture then 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg in his dorm at Harvard, wearing his grey hoodie, hunched over a laptop coding away at the first version of The Facebook, when someone (maybe a Winklevoss) sent him an invite to the 3D service (probably via AOL Instant Messenger). He likely signed on, made a cool avatar (with horns and a cape instead of the hoodie) with a handle like ZuckThisN00bs. Maybe he even found true virtual love. But he got ditched, much like in that opening scene of The Social NetworkThe Social Network. So he went back to his text-based social network idea...but he never forgot.
That's the only way I can wrap my head around his decision to rename his corporation to Meta, so it can fully embrace "the metaverse." That's the idea that the internet can and should be a 3-D virtual space for people to do all the things they do today online—shop, work, play, etc.—using avatars in a 3D world, ala Ready Player One. But it's not like Meta (the company) is the only one who's going to try and launch one—Microsoft, Apple, Google, the wireless carriers with 5G, and even Disney, they all want in. The basics are there, enough for people to have opinions before they even strap on their haptic bodysuits and 3D goggles.
That's why the folks at the customer service platform provider Tidio set out to survey 1,050 people (gathered from Reddit and surveyed via Amazon's Mechanical Turk) with 24 pertinent questions about the metaverse and how they feel about it.
From the get-go, it's not good news. Over three-quarters believe the metaverse will "cause serious harm to modern society."
That image above spells out not only the harm expected (like tech addiction getting even worse) but also a lot of positives. It's possible that simply having Facebook associated with a metaverse could be seen as harmful, considering what has come before.
Most people would want to join a metaverse for work and entertainment. But a lot also see it being used for investment, education, and online dating (69% said they'd totally do a cyber hook-up with a stranger in a virtual club). Weirdly, gaming isn't high on the list, even though 73% claimed they'd play a win-or-die game (like in Squid Game) if it was virtual.
Respondents were high on the possibilities of using a metaverse to try things they wouldn't do IRL, like participate in virtual extreme sports (38%), use VR to alter themselves without substances (27%), and create an alter ego that's nothing like their real-life persona (24%). More than half plan to make an avatar that looks nothing like them.
The questions even go into asking if people such as registered sex offenders should be given access to the metaverse to use it to get rid of their criminal urges. (Most said no.) That leads to the kinds of content people feel should be censored or restricted in these future VR/AR worlds—like depictions of suicide, racism, or animal abuse, and how much money they'd be willing to spend to get the VR gear needed for access. Read the full report at Tidio to see more.