Why The Metaverse is ultimately just bad
How to make sure you don’t get sucked into the addictive world of the metaverse
I might be a little late to this, but it’s better to be late than never. So here are my reasons and views why something like the Metaverse is ultimately a bad idea. Something like the Metaverse looks good just in sci-fi novels. Its repercussions in real life have adverse effects. Bringing the Metaverse to life is the beginning of the loss of touch from reality. Here are my reasons:
- Moving eons far away from mental health and self acceptance:
The whole concept of Metaverse is to be able to live in a virtual world with an avatar who looks exactly like you. You can make the avatar look however you want. You can make it taller, slimmer, hotter and basically create a version of you where you have the lips of Kylie Jenner, and hips of Kim Kardashian. I meant butt, but it doesn’t rhyme with hips. We already live in a world where people feel insecure about their body. Now imagine you live in a virtual world where you can look however you want, change whatever you want about yourself. It might sound good, but it’ll make you feel bad about the real amazing body you have. Your real life becomes obsolete. You just want to escape into your virtual life instead of dealing and facing your problems in a healthy manner. You start hating yourself, instead of loving yourself and showing yourself some compassion when you feel down.
The only good thing from this is that your therapist might be able to afford that fancy sports car they really like.
2.Went from laughing at talking tom to becoming talking tom:
Remember talking tom? That cute little cat who would mimic the things you said. With the power of Metaverse, you can probably look like talking tom, and ask out that girl-cat tom really likes. This is not really an amazing point about why the Metaverse is bad, but I thought i’ll say it to keep things a bit more comical.
3. Addiction bro obviously,
and more about how it will affect your mental health:
Imagine you go onto Instagram. You open stories and watch your friends eating at a restaurant having fun. Now imagine you are wearing VR specs, and you can literally watch them eating and having fun. Good luck dealing with the rush of emotions. The social media apps are already toxic with the fake models, and people trying to be someone they are not. With something like the Metaverse, the effect of this will be astronomical. The addiction levels will also be at its highest, as you are getting a higher sense of connection with the video. You end up scrolling endlessly the whole day, customizing your avatar, not realizing it won’t affect your life in any useful way. You end up giving more value to your virtual life than your real life. You get the compulsive need to make others happy and not yourself. You feel worthless about something that is not even real.
4. Not only mental health problems, but “physical health problems” as well:
Other than making us isolated, depressed, anxious and feel lonely while being hyper connected,the physical health problems of something like Metaverse coming to life are far more worse, in the long term and the short term.
The physical problems include eye strain, problems with sleeping,obesity,cardiovascular disease,type 2 diabetes,premature death(yea i know mate, its mad). Going into why all this happens makes me feel bad, so let me tell you things you could do to prevent them from happening:
> The 20–20–20 rule for digital viewing:
A person takes a 20-second break from looking at a screen every 20 minutes. During the break, the person focuses on an object 20 feet away, which relaxes the eye muscles. Set an alarm for every 20 minutes while working, as a reminder to take a break.
> Re-engineer the environment you are working in:
Start using quality chairs with head-rest to make sure your posture is right when you are working. It makes you more productive and puts less stress on you and your nice back. I think the place where you sit and work for 9 hours should be at least comfortable to sit in. A good alternative is standing desks. Standing desks are becoming extremely popular these days as they reduce the pain on your back when you are working long hours. You could add desks with movement interventions, such as treadmills, or even sit on bounce balls.There are no drawbacks to using desks with movement interventions.A study that examined the effect of a re-engineered working environment found that in addition to workers losing weight and body fat, the company’s revenue rose by nearly 10 percent in the first few months of the study.
> Do a “no social media day” at least once a month:
The best thing to do for your body is to not use something like social media for one day a month, or more. Take a walk and look within instead of looking at the mobile. Talk to your family and meet your friends instead of texting them. After trying it out, I was astonished by the large amount of time I have to complete my tasks for the day. You also feel happier as you are not being bombarded with messages and tweets, and how people are doing in their life. Do look into dopamine detox if you are serious about coming out of this cycle of social media addiction. Try eating your lunch without looking at your phone, and also pooping without your phone(an extreme time saver, I am not even joking!).
I would honestly recommend you to not get sucked into the hype of Metaverse. In the beginning, you might feel left out, but you aren’t missing out on anything important. Everything’s gonna be alright. Try out the no social media thing for a day, and you can tell me how it works out if you want to, in the comments.
Have a good day.
