December 8, 2022
People in the West continue to express ambivalence about the metaverse
A new poll from law firm Gowling WLG claims to reveal a stark difference in attitudes in Western and Eastern nations when it comes to the metaverse. It claims that the technology is set to change how we work and socialise forever, and that early adopters like China and the United Arab Emirates are already reaping the economic benefits. The firm’s Immaterial World report compared attitudes towards the metaverse in six international markets. The research found that four-in-five (83 percent) Chinese consumers would consider taking part in virtual experiences, more than twice as many as in the UK (37 percent). (more…)
All of humanity’s problems,” the French scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in 1654, “stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” He may have been right, but then again, sitting in a room alone isn’t necessarily a great state of permanent being either. There was a time we used to talk with dismay about the Japanese phenomenon of intense social distancing known as hikikomori. We would consider with horror the isolation, lack of engagement with society, poor mental health and loneliness of the people who had almost completely withdrawn to their rooms. Those poor bastards locked up in enclosed spaces linked to the outside world only by screens. 
