Children In The Metaverse

“You can think about the metaverse as an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content — you are in it.”

- Mark Zuckerberg

• Addiction, time-waster, and distractions
• Bullying, trolls, stalkers, and crime
• Spam and advertising
• Pornographic and violent images
• Never being able to disconnect from work
• Identity theft, hacking, viruses, and cheating
• Affects focus and patience
• Depression, loneliness, and social isolation
• Buying things that you don’t need
• Not a safe place for children
• Health issues and obesity
• Viruses/Malware

Now let’s put all of the above in a room in our house.

Then let’s invite our kids in with VR goggles.

Virtual in a Physical World

Facebook has reinvented itself as Meta.

Zuckerberg wants the future to be virtual when the world he is pitching to had physical vinyl record sales of 94% to $467 million in 2021. That’s considering all the music that has ever been created is now available to everyone for a monthly subscription fee of less than $10. Yet vinyl sales are increasing and a single vinyl record costs $20.

Have we mentioned that a person has to turn the record over to Side B after 3 or 4 songs?

If Zuckerberg is betting on more virtual experiences, why are parents seeking out advice to wean their children off Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft?

Research indicates that video games can become pathological and destructive to family life. One out of ten gamers does develop a pathological problem. Some of these symptoms include:

• Lying to family and friends about video game usage
• Using video games to escape from problems or bad feelings
• Becoming restless or irritable when attempting to stop playing video games
• Skipping homework in order to play video games
• Doing poorly on a school assignment or test because of too much time on games

Gaming has also been associated with sleep deprivation, insomnia, and circadian rhythm disorders, depression, aggression, and anxiety.

There has also been concern that exposure to extreme violence in video games can desensitize teens and young adults to such violence, causing emotional problems and even leading to young people committing acts of violence.

School Shootings, Racism, and the Metaverse

However, based on new research and two studies from Villanova University professors show that people are likely to erroneously blame violent video games for school shootings when the perpetrator was white than when the shooter was Black.

One of the studies examined 200,000 news articles of 204 mass shootings between 1978 and 2018, committed by either White or Black perpetrators. The study defined a mass shooting as three-plus victims, not including the shooter, and was not gang, drug, or organized crime-related. Video games were mentioned 8.5 times more often in school shootings when the perpetrators were White compared to when they were Black.

Psychological and Brain Sciences professor Patrick Markey, Ph.D., stated “Because video games are disproportionately blamed as a culprit for mass shootings committed by white perpetrators…” Dr. Markey went on to say, “Because there is a stereotypical association between racial minorities and violent crime.”

Taking into effect that video games impact both white and Black populations, and although first-person shooter games still require a player to use a controller to move and act within the game itself, if any player is given their freedom in a virtual world to act out their anger and aggression, how will they behave?

Will a Meta version of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto video game create a spike of petty and grand larceny in the real world?

More importantly, how will children, white, Black, and other minorities be able to distinguish between reality and Meta?

The Metaverse is for the Rich and Higher Middle Class

Virtual Reality is expensive. At the high end, a premiere headset costs $1,000. On the cheaper end, Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2 is $299. To play certain games, those headsets need to be wired to a high-end gaming PC. The price of these machines vary, but something that can handle VR will cost around another $1,000. Once the machine is built and the headset hooked up, the player will need to carve out a dedicated physical space to play the game. Most games require a minimum of about 6.5 feet by 5 feet.

Parents who are in a lower to middle-class income bracket will struggle to have their children connect to this new virtual world and the in-world app purchases could bankrupt some families.

Virtual Rich, Reality Poor

What if your children become rich in the metaverse but live a middle-class life in reality?

Even without the metaverse, some children, teenagers are making $10,000 a month with online gaming. As video gets streamed to your children’s audience, people get to comment, chat and share it with their friends, thus increasing the number of followers. Players get to reply, share in the fun and show off their best moves. Money made is derived from viewers’ donations and cut-in from the ad revenue, which varies from service to service — such as Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube.

More recently, NFT gameplay is creating a whole economy of revenue-generating gamers. NFT games allow users to earn money as they play. Blending video games with finance, or GameFi as players call it, these games use NFTs — unique digital collectibles on the blockchain — that gamers can sell in games to other collectors and players. Gamers can also earn NFTs in certain pay-to-earn gaming models. This setup allows gamers to invest in NFTs, which have the potential to appreciate in value. In blockchain-based video games like Axie Infinity, wealthier players are becoming bosses in a flourishing international labor market. People playing these games in the Philippines are earning double what they could in a regular job.

Anyone who plays Fortnite, the name “Sceptic” is known by fans of the game. His real name is Griffin Spikoski. Griffin or “Sceptic” has made close to US$10 million. His parents have hired an accountant and a financial planner to invest the money he is making online.

For the metaverse, money can be hidden from family members. Children can decide who is allowed into their virtual world. In this cyber world, children can determine if they are the parents, the landlords, or even rise to God-level status if there is a massive following.

How do parents put God-like status into timeout?

“The promise of VR is to make the world you wanted. It is not possible, on Earth, to give everyone all that they would want.” — Doom co-creator and former CTO of Oculus John Carmack

The Dark Metaverse

And with the creation of the Metaverse, it could have its own evil twin — much like the Internet has the dark web. What would that look like? And how will you know what your children are plugged into?

How will court cases deal with Metaverse rapes of women? The trauma would be the same — although it can be argued that all you would need to do is throw off your VR googles to wake up from the nightmare. But no one should have to distinguish between a virtual rape and a real one.

How about metaverse gangs that go throughout the virtual worlds bullying and trolling players — and intimidating them to join their gang or be attacked continuously — in the virtual world, on social media in the real world, and in the classroom…

Will the metaverse bring about digital slavery? Not bound by color but instead by those who are having to pay off debts from losing it all in the metaverse and having to work it off virtually?

Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game showed how virtual reality gaming could be used to wipe out civilizations and worlds without letting children know they are doing it.

Will we allow our children to have an hour a day in the metaverse without supervision? And if we enter the metaverse with our children to hold their hand — how can we be sure what we see in our metaverse is the same as what they see in theirs?

“People who smile while they are alone used to be called insane until we invented smartphones and social media.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Getting Help Before It’s Needed

There are even support groups, such as Computer Gaming Addicts Anonymous, which leverage the power of group support — also helpful in the treatment of other addictions — to the realm of gaming addiction. But it requires children, pre-teens, and teenagers to understand that the Metaverse doesn’t run their reality.

Can the metaverse be good for children? Video games can improve children’s learning, health, and social skills.

The goal is to teach children the firm difference between virtual and reality.

But in a world where we teach kids that both the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are real — will children able to determine for themselves the difference?