Amongst the changes that “lockdowns” and “new normality” have brought, there is a revalorization of digital interactions as valuable and meani

The Metaverse: A brave, new (virtual) world

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2021-06-18 23:00:02

Amongst the changes that “lockdowns” and “new normality” have brought, there is a revalorization of digital interactions as valuable and meaningful. Ironically, what was once regarded as isolationist or a poor substitute for “real life” (an expression used as an interchangeable semantic proxy for “in-person”) experiences, has become the glue that holds the social fabric together.

Connecting in and through digital spaces has been a staple of 2020: from work or formal education moving to online alternatives, to recreational uses of video platforms. In these virtual spaces, human ingenuity has found new testing grounds to deal with the challenges presented by the pandemic. It can be a thoughtful provocation to say that since lockdowns started, we might have been living in a proto-version of the Metaverse.

The silver lining is an accelerated digital transformation, even for those areas traditionally reluctant to innovate or that deemed remoteness incompatible with organizational culture (like small businesses adopting digital payments as opposed to inveterate cash-only business practices, or governmental bureaucracies offering online alternatives to otherwise mandatory in-person procedures).