The metaverse offers opportunities for business, observes columnist Hidde de Vries. Employees can come together in a virtual office, for example. But the digital world also brings risks.
In Steven Spielberg's film Ready Player One, we see how Wade Watts' life takes place in an almost entirely virtual world. A science fiction film that becomes more true by the day.
If it were up to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the metaverse actually our future. But what exactly does it entail? Where are the opportunities in the future? And what can you do with this right now as an entrepreneur?
What is the metaverse?
The metaverse is a network of virtual three-dimensional worlds. A place where virtual reality and "digital second life" come together.
Both of these concepts have been around for some time. The term virtual reality emerged in the 1980s and the possibility of creating a digital second life we know from games like Fortnite and Second Life. Combining these concepts, the metaverse becomes a virtual world where, through an avatar or otherwise, you can interact with others and participate in a virtual economy.
The first steps for creating the final metaverse have already been taken by Meta, Facebook's parent company. The platform Horizon Worlds has now had more than 300,000 users.
The development of the first real version of the metaverse is still expected to take about five to ten years. According to analysts, it will be a full-fledged economy where some $30 trillion in will deal with.
Opportunities for employers
Mark Zuckerberg is excited about the future metaverse like no other. He sees opportunities in all areas of the economy. So too in the area of work.
It is no coincidence, then, that since the pandemic, plans for the metaverse have taken more and more shape. We all want to move toward a future of hybrid work, but along the way we encounter various obstacles against. The metaverse provides a solution to those obstacles.
In the metaverse, organizations can build a virtual office building. A place where employees can come together without having to travel there. Meetings, having lunch together, taking a walk and chatting in the hallway: it's all part of the possibilities.
Getting together in the metaverse means the end of exhausting online meetings that turn inspired employees into "zoombies. Advanced technology makes it possible in a metaverse meeting to properly observe facial expressions and body language, Zuckerberg explains in his presentation. And unlike hybrid working, everyone can be "physically" present at the meeting (instead of one at home and the other at the office).
Concrete opportunity for employers?
So it will be some time before this future is truly a reality. Nevertheless, you can already reap the benefits of it now. Especially in the area of training and onboarding, there are great opportunities with the technology already available.
In the training profession, we have already gained experience with virtual reality in stress management training, for example. In the games we use for this purpose, participants are challenged in stressful situations (such as jumping off a building or conquering an island) by means of various challenges. Through biofeedback, participants learn to recognize stress signals in themselves and gain insight into which parts of the brain take over. A VR experience that delivers effective results at work.
For training people, more and more concepts are emerging to make the experience as realistic as possible. For example, the company uses FundamentalVR a technology called HapticVR (which combines VR and touch) to familiarize doctors with certain operations. KLM is using VR to train maintenance engineers and OneBonsai is mimicking hostage situations.
The snags
So is it all positive? No, there are also risks. Experiences in the "real world" are replaced in the metaverse by experiences in the virtual world. This brings all sorts of complications.
Just to start with the concept of screen time. In 2019, the average screen time among adults was 5,5 hours a day. When even the social chats take place through a screen (or your VR glasses), that number will quickly rise to 10 hours or more.
Another issue: how do you distinguish truth from fiction in a virtual world? This is becoming increasingly difficult even in the normal world. To make games and movies increasingly realistic, techniques such as deep fake unprecedentedly realistic. Nice for the game, but it can have disastrous consequences for our mutual trust. And that is precisely one of the basic things when you look at our well-being and happiness.
We must also be careful when it comes to human needs. Back in 2011, there was research done on the impact of "digital second life" on general well-being. This showed, among other things, that some human needs are better met in the virtual world than in the real world. Think autonomy, physical health and a sense of well-being. But what does it mean when the virtual world becomes more attractive than the real world?
For now, we are particularly reaping the benefits
For now, the technology currently available offers mostly opportunities. The benefits of the eventual metaverse are significant, as long as we remain keen on the risks.
In Ready Player One, the decision is made to turn off the metaverse for two days a week for a reason. So that people also continue to live their real lives. So the concluding line of the film reads, "Reality is the only thing that is real.
