You might have heard of the ‘Metaverse’ which was introduced by Mark Zuckerberg at the end of 2021. Mark Zuckerberg describes this as a three-dimensional space where we would connect with people to work together and have fun. Delia Dumitrica, associate professor in Culture and Communication at ESHCC, was interviewed by NEMO Kennislink to share her ideas on the metaverse.
“A digital world can create opportunities that are not there in the real world. Think of people with disabilities, who, for example, have difficulties going out the door or have mental problems.”
The need for the metaverse
Delia Dumitrica does believe that there is a fruitful promise to the idea of a more ‘bodily’ experience in a virtual world and digital communication. However, within her own environment, the academic world, she did see that her students were happy to go back to campus after the covid lockdowns. “I noticed tremendous joy from the students to meet again in real life, and not digitally”, she says.
Is the metaverse something we really want and need? Delia explains how companies usually lead us to believe that we have a need for something. “The same happened with social media”, she says. “Companies create a hype, which leads to a need that we didn’t even know we had.”
However, this doesn’t mean that people cannot be rightfully enthusiastic. “A digital world can create opportunities that are not there in the real world”, Delia explains. “Think of people with disabilities, who, for example, have difficulties going out the door or have mental problems. However, we do need to consider that there are people who simply cannot afford VR headsets.”
Apart from Delia, Wijnand IJsselsteijn (TU Eindhoven) and Hans Berend (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) were also interviewed for the article by NEMO Kennislink. Read the entire article in Dutch here.
- Researcher