According to the organisation previously known as Facebook, a technological revolution is brewing that will make the ubiquity of smartphones look minor by comparison. Meta – as it has been known since 2021 – has spent the last few years pouring billions of dollars into its eponymous metaverse. And while plenty of hand-waving has surrounded the precise form this virtual environment will take, the claim underlying its existence is clear enough. We are entering an era of digital bodily presence – and, sooner or later, this fact will transform our lives.
Like many observers, I’m sceptical about the banalities of Meta’s marketing (“we’re building new ways to help you explore your interests and connect with, meaning ‘to plunge into’ or ‘submerge’) sketches what’s at stake. These are digital experiences that can be inhabited and explored like real locations; that fill your field of view and follow your gaze; that exist in three dimensions and, via motion-tracking and touch-based feedback, can extend their compass to your entire body. At least in theory, they invite a fundamentally new relationship between minds and media: one where we aren’t so much its audience as its inhabitants.
