In the last post, I ended with the possibility that the metaverse will divide society between those who want to live in real life and those who want to escape real life. Back to smartphones. Smartphones have evolved into mini-computers with huge memories, fast processors, and apps that allow you to play video games, watch movies and communicate in all ways except physically. Where we live, I can look down on a busy street with many pedestrians. Eight out of ten of them are walking while looking at their phone screens. From our street, there are lovely views of mountains and the sea but they never see them. They are living somewhere else. This brings me to the real psychological danger of the metaverse.

You have probably read about the social and personal harm that comes from being on social media. We have all seen scenes like these. [Insert pictures] That is the way people are together these days. They are there but not really there. You probably know somebody who is hooked on video games. They spend most of the day and night staring at a screen and controlling the action. Which, of course, is not real life. They are two-dimensional, real life is three-dimensional.

The metaverse as MZ envisions it is three-dimensional, like real life. You can be in the computer screen dancing with your friends, wielding the AK-47 killing people, or scoring the winning goal, all in your room by yourself. The metaverse will remove the physical presence element of really being with other people. That promotes two psychological problems prevalent in our society today. One is isolationism. Isolationism is a defense mechanism to shield a person from rejection or any unwanted treatment by other people. It is a safe place from mental and emotional abuse. The easiest way to isolate oneself from the pain of this world is to live in a fantasy world.

The second psychological problem that comes with the metaverse is escapism, another defense mechanism. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines escapism as the tendency to escape from the real world to the delight or security of a fantasy world. In its mildest form of daydreams, escapism is normal. But when it is used to escape the need to deal with the real problems of life it becomes a form of psychotic disorder where fantasy becomes real life. Drugs and alcoholism are in the same category of escapism. They are addictive emotionally and chemically, and are illegal or socially rejected. You will be able to have the same effect by putting on the metaverse headset. Put it on and instantly your problems disappear, you are where you want to be, with whom you want to be, doing what you want to do. Never mind that instead of being bullied verbally on Facebook, you will have avatars shouting at you, mocking you, giving you hand signals, right in your face. But only if you enter the vortex of the metaverse.

The technical definition of vortex is a mass of fast-spinning air or water that pulls objects into its empty center. In literary usage, the way I use it here, it means a dangerous or bad situation in which you become more and more involved and from which you eventually cannot escape. Why do I see the coming metaverse as a vortex? In the beginning, it will be novel, euphoric, a welcome diversion from the problems of life. That is the way drug addiction and alcoholism begin. Occasion use will not hurt. But the more pleasure escape from reality brings, the more a person wants to escape. Smartphones and video games started with occasional use. Now people cannot do without them. They have to have them. That is escapism. It is addictive and pathogenic. Once hooked there is no escape. It is a vortex in which the consumer has become the consumed.

I have purposefully tried to paint a dismal picture of the metaverse. It does not take a nuclear physicist to figure out that the hours spent on smartphones and video games in two dimensions will increase exponentially when they become three-dimensional. In metaverse land, being there is much better than wanting to be there. Even if you are really not there.

You will not find me on Facebook or any other social media. The icons are at the bottom of each post for the convenience of those that do use them. I don’t even want to see what an avatar of me would look like. Because I am a Christian, I know that the problems of this life are real but temporary. God is my ever-present help in times of trouble. If He does not deliver me from hard situations, He will give me the strength and wisdom to get through them. I have a present peace from which that I do not want to escape.