Metaverse: Its Potential Negatives元宇宙的潛在弊端

阿約邁克 曾逸

The Metaverse is a pretty cool tech. But just like every other innovative tech， there are negatives to this.

Addiction

You know how we already complain that humans spend too much time on the internet playing games， watching movies， and even streaming videos？ Well， the idea of Metaverse will amplify that by a whole lot.

Think about it， whod like to quickly leave a space he/she designed that seems perfect. I mean， the person is living his/her dreams， has the perfect body， goes to the best places， and does whatever he/she pleases.

Its very easy to lose touch of reality and began to prefer staying in the virtual world and even prefer it to your personal life.

Inferiority Complex and Depression

We already see how social media pictures make people dislike parts of their body. Over the couple of years， the numbers of plastic surgeries to correct parts of the body has grown among teens globally. But， what happens when you live in a fantasy world where you design the perfect body and come back to reality to see that youre still you？

Its simple， reality check comes in the moment you come out of the metaverse and realize youre not actually what you designed yourself to be in the virtual world. In real life， youre still not as tall or as chubby as you wish. Gradually， depression will set.

Data and Security

Another potential negative of this world is access and sharing of data. I mean， joining the metaverse will require you sharing huge amount of data with Meta. Which include but not restricted to your behaviors， interest， patterns etc. on a much larger scale.

And judging from history， Meta is not very good at managing data. And giving all these information away is not such a good idea to say the least. Or， what if there is a data breach and someone else has access to those personal information？

Denying Reality

Truth is， you can actually create your own reality in metaverse but who defines whats real and whats not？ I mean， one user can decide to remove some real things from their metaverse just because they dont like it not because those things are not real.

Lets say， you dont like people from certain tribe， this means in your metaverse you can decide to remove them. Or you dont like homeless people or hospitals， you can decide to remove these things. Point is， users can easily deny reality and build a different world in the metaverse and that is a problem.81F69770-B60C-445C-A6A6-EA191ECEF075

Why is this a problem？ Well the moment they come out of that virtual world， theyll have to deal with these things. They cant stay in the virtual world forever （or maybe they plan to？）.

Moderation

Who is going to moderate this virtual reality against hate speech or racism？ How will the moderation be carried out？ I mean， moderating social media platforms is already stressful and moderating a whole universe built by different people is a whole new level of stressful.

Will Meta be able to watch every single user and catch every single gesture， characters， speech and text that promotes hate， racism， false news and online bullying？ Meta will need a huge work force to be able to implement this and even at that， itll still be very difficult.

And if moderation is not properly done， the whole virtual world can easily turn into chaos. I mean， not everyone will be there to promote positive vibes only.

At the end， were still humans and well have to eat， drink， and sleep in real life. So， even if we create this whole perfect world on metaverse， well still have to come back and live our lives.

What Meta is proposing is pretty cool and it seems like the future of social media where you get to interact more realistically. You can be whatever you want， do whatever you want and go wherever you want.

But， it also amplifies the negative sides of using social media such as; addiction， harassment， depression and even security issues. And the speed of 5G connectivity is the main reason why this whole virtual universe seems even possible.

I mean， can you imagine using 2G or 3G to access such universe？ The buffering alone would make it extreme difficult to use.

So， while were all excited about the new idea of a Metaverse， its also okay for us to look critically at the negatives. This way， well be able to better prepare ourselves for whats coming “the future of social media”.

元宇宙是一項(xiàng)很酷的技術(shù)。但正如其他所有新技術(shù)一樣，元宇宙也存在弊端。

成癮

人們已然抱怨，花費(fèi)了太多時(shí)間在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上玩游戲、看電影甚至刷視頻。知道嗎，元宇宙會(huì)使人們網(wǎng)上沖浪的時(shí)間在此基礎(chǔ)上成倍增加。

試想，誰愿意從自己打造的看似完美的世界迅速抽身而去呢——我是說，元宇宙讓人們夢(mèng)想成真：擁有完美身材，打卡最佳景點(diǎn)，行事隨心所欲。

這樣一來，人們很容易脫離現(xiàn)實(shí)，開始更愿意待在虛擬世界，甚至喜歡虛擬世界勝于真實(shí)的個(gè)人生活。

自卑與抑郁

社交媒體上的照片讓人們對(duì)自己的身體不甚滿意，這一點(diǎn)大家有目共睹。過去幾年間，全球青少年進(jìn)行整形手術(shù)的數(shù)量不斷增加。不過，如果你在幻想世界中為自己設(shè)計(jì)了完美身材，回到現(xiàn)實(shí)中卻發(fā)現(xiàn)自己仍是原來的樣子，會(huì)怎么樣呢？

很簡(jiǎn)單，當(dāng)你走出元宇宙，現(xiàn)實(shí)就是一面“照妖鏡”，讓你意識(shí)到自己實(shí)際上并非虛擬世界中自我設(shè)計(jì)的那樣。在現(xiàn)實(shí)生活中，你仍然沒有理想的身高或者健碩的身形。漸漸地，抑郁情緒就會(huì)出現(xiàn)。

數(shù)據(jù)和安全

元宇宙的另一個(gè)潛在弊端是數(shù)據(jù)訪問和共享。意思是，用戶加入元宇宙就需要向元宇宙平臺(tái)公司提供海量數(shù)據(jù)，包括但不限于個(gè)人行為、興趣、生活方式等，共享數(shù)據(jù)規(guī)模會(huì)比現(xiàn)在大得多。81F69770-B60C-445C-A6A6-EA191ECEF075

而且就以往經(jīng)驗(yàn)來看，元宇宙平臺(tái)公司并不擅長(zhǎng)管理數(shù)據(jù)。至少可以說，把以上所有信息全權(quán)交付該公司并不是個(gè)好主意。說白了，如果數(shù)據(jù)泄露，其他人可以訪問這些個(gè)人信息，怎么辦？

否認(rèn)現(xiàn)實(shí)

誠(chéng)然，人人都可以在元宇宙中創(chuàng)建自己的現(xiàn)實(shí)世界，但誰來定義何為真實(shí)、何為虛幻？我是說，用戶可以僅憑個(gè)人喜好而非真實(shí)與否，就在自己的元宇宙中刪除真實(shí)存在的東西。

舉個(gè)例子，假設(shè)你不喜歡某一群體，你就可以決定在自己的元宇宙中剔除他們;如果不喜歡流浪漢或者醫(yī)院，可以將其統(tǒng)統(tǒng)刪除。關(guān)鍵是，用戶很容易否認(rèn)現(xiàn)實(shí)并在元宇宙中建立一個(gè)截然不同的世界，這就是問題所在。

為什么這一點(diǎn)很有問題呢？因?yàn)椋?dāng)人們走出那個(gè)虛擬世界時(shí)，將不得不面對(duì)現(xiàn)實(shí)中反感的人或事。他們不可能永遠(yuǎn)生活在虛擬世界中（也可能他們打算這樣做？）。

約束

誰來約束虛擬世界以防范仇視言論或種族主義？約束又將如何進(jìn)行？要知道，約束社交媒體平臺(tái)已是壓力重重，而約束由各色人等構(gòu)建的整個(gè)元宇宙將使壓力上升到一個(gè)新的高度。

元宇宙平臺(tái)公司能否監(jiān)視每一個(gè)用戶的行為并且發(fā)現(xiàn)宣揚(yáng)仇恨、種族主義、虛假新聞及網(wǎng)絡(luò)霸凌的每一個(gè)手勢(shì)和字符、每一條語音和文本？元宇宙平臺(tái)公司需要大量人力才能落實(shí)這項(xiàng)工作，即便如此，仍然非常困難。

如果約束不到位，整個(gè)虛擬世界很容易會(huì)變得烏煙瘴氣。要知道，元宇宙中，不是每個(gè)人都只傳播正能量。

說到底，我們?nèi)允侨耍覀冞€得在現(xiàn)實(shí)中吃飯喝水、睡覺休息。所以，即使我們?cè)谠钪嬷袆?chuàng)造了完美世界，仍需回歸現(xiàn)實(shí)生活。

元宇宙平臺(tái)公司的提議的確很酷，且貌似正是社交媒體的未來，因?yàn)樗芴峁└鎸?shí)的互動(dòng)。你可以成為想成為的任何人，做想做的任何事，去想去的任何地方。

但是，它也放大了使用社交媒體的負(fù)面影響，例如成癮、騷擾、抑郁甚至安全問題。此外，高速的5G互聯(lián)是整個(gè)元宇宙看似可能構(gòu)建成功的主因。

試問，你能想象使用2G或3G網(wǎng)絡(luò)訪問元宇宙嗎？?jī)H僅緩沖加載就會(huì)讓使用極度困難。

所以，在我們都為“元宇宙”這一新想法感到興奮的同時(shí)，也可以批判性地了解其弊端。只有這樣，我們才能做好更充分的準(zhǔn)備去迎接即將到來的“社交媒體的未來”。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎(jiǎng)?wù)?單位：中南大學(xué)）81F69770-B60C-445C-A6A6-EA191ECEF075