How bad can the impact of metaverse be on young kids? Will it mess with teens’ mental health?
The minute Facebook became Meta things the technology world has taken many turns. The keynote given by Mark Zuckerberg demonstrates that Facebook is expanding beyond a reality people can touch and feel. The potential of the metaverse is that we could build a world that allows each of us to express our best selves. Zuckerberg demonstrated what the world could look like using both virtual reality and augmented reality as a daily part of our human experience. There are many parts of the metaverse worth exploring but there is also a concern related to this technology and that is of the mental health, especially of teenagers.
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Will the metaverse mess with teens’ mental health? While it may take a while before we can definitively answer that question, some experts fear the answer will be a resounding yes.
Much has proactively been written in regards to the connections social researchers have seen between social media screen time and adverse mental well-being impacts among youthful clients. Tension, sorrow, and self-destructive ideation have soared among teenagers in the past few years. What’s more, analysts trust that is because of a harmful stew of screen-time-related impacts, including FOMO (fear of missing out), cyberbullying, unhealthy comparisons with ridiculous pictures, and, unexpectedly, expanding social separation.
So what happens as companies such as Meta invite users into evermore immersive virtual reality/augmented reality environments and experiences? How bad can the impact of metaverse be on young kids?
As these new innovative conceivable outcomes start to come on the web and move into the mainstream, parents stay the best frontline defense for tweens and teens who may be helpless to the metaverse’s likely clouded side. It’s not difficult to feel overpowered as parents. But several concrete steps can assist with limiting these dangers.
1. Set good boundaries on when, where, and how much kids have access to online experiences.
2. Keep lines of communication open by talking to your kids about their online interests.
3. And perhaps most importantly, build trust and connection by spending time with your kids, listening to them, and looking for entertainment options you can enjoy together.
Some problems are already here
In December, Meta launched a virtual reality social platform, Horizon Worlds. Last March, Microsoft launched a cloud collaboration service for virtual 3D business meetings. Other companies, like Roblox and Epic Games, are grabbing toeholds in the metaverse through popular online games.
One such game distributer, VRChat, as of now shows proof of risks for youthful clients. In December, research from the charitable Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) observed that minors were routinely presented with graphic sexual content, racist and violent language, bullying, and other forms of harassment on VRChat’s platform, which is typically accessed through Meta’s Oculus headsets.
We may experience dissonance between reality and the metaverse
Going from a Metaverse built around a real-time experience and then going back into reality where things tend to manifest slower will be a bit of a shock to the system. To such an extent that it could prompt individuals to separate from their real-life in favor of the world, they’ve created in the Metaverse. Or it could simply be disorienting to return and forward between the two encounters. We must figure out how to explore the two universes simultaneously.
Our emotional well-being will be affected
This could have both a positive and an adverse consequence on our emotional wellness as we are living in two worlds: one we have made to our exact specification and one that answers our desires in a much slower fashion. Likewise, with any new innovation, we will need to be mindful about not disconnecting ourselves in metaverse so much from our real life that it becomes difficult to navigate them at the same time.
In conclusion, the metaverse is the future. The combination of technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality will change the world for good. But there are many concerns related to metaverse like digital slavery, adverse impact on mental health, and more that needs to be addressed.
