The Metaverse
The next big media or technology advancement that changes the way we live, work and play could be the metaverse. I already feel like I am getting too old for this—is this a place where I will be able to tell people to get off my meta-lawn? What exactly is the metaverse? Oli Welsh explains it in an article for Polygon as “a graphically rich virtual space, with some degree of verisimilitude, where people can work, play, shop, socialize — in short, do the things humans like to do together in real life (or, perhaps more to the point, on the internet). Metaverse proponents often focus on the concept of “presence” as a defining factor: feeling like you’re really there, and feeling like other people are really there with you, too” (Welsh, 2022). So the metaverse is essentially a video game, except real life, and the things you can do there are also things you can do in real life. My first instinct to this is why can’t we just do them in real life then? But COVID pulse my latest weekend ...
