The psychological impact of the Metaverse

Abstract The Metaverse is no revolution, but another step in the evolution of the internet. Today we can observe various 3D virtual worlds with different focuses and purposes, like meeting spaces, education, or classic gaming. Most of these applications run on computer or smart phone, some of these 3D platforms support virtual reality glasses, or even further wearables like haptic gloves. Nevertheless, the general interconnection of these platforms is still lacking. Due to this, user information, including avatars, cannot be reused for other applications. Even if the research company Gartner predicts that already “by 2026, 25% of the people will spend at least 1 h a day in the Metaverse for work, shopping, education, social and/or entertainment,” the vision still did not manifest yet. This gives society and academia time to start a productive discussion. The article wants to support this ambition by first discussing a potential definition of what the Metaverse will be, including different types for different purposes. After that this, the text predicts the arrival, including required circumstances, then later the expected psychologic impact of the expected scenarios on the regular users. As human psychology depends on experience, environment and, of course, the contact with other humans, such a scenario will have a relevant impact, up to a different understanding of reality, as people frictionless move from physical to virtual world, and even interact on complete different virtual worlds. Existing articles regarding the connections between online (like video games and social media) and offline behavior focused on particular cohorts. As the Metaverse will change work and private life, wide parts of society are voluntary and non-voluntary affected, which limits the possibility to transfer the insights from earlier scenarios to this topic. This article focuses on shifted Socialization, Roles, Perception, and the relating Humanization of Artificial Intelligence, as it enables the algorithm, consciously or subconsciously, to influence the human mind. Graphical Abstract