Benítez Rojas Raquel V. The Future of Digital Communication: The Metaverse

CRC Press, 2024. — 178 p. — ISBN: 9781003379119.This collection of essays explores the present and future of digital communication through a range of interdisciplinary approaches, all of which focus on the so-called metaverse. The metaverse is a combination of multiple elements of technology – including virtual reality, augmented reality, and video – where users "live" within a digital universe. The vision for this new universe is that its users can work, play, and stay connected with friends through everything. Such a vision is hinted at in existing phenomena such as online game universes.Meta comes from the Greek word meta, which means “among”, “with”, “after”, or “beyond”. When combined with words in English, meta-often signifies “change” or “alteration”, as in the words metamorphic or metabolism, while verse means “universe”. So, we are in a new universe of communication that the companies and social media groups building, like Facebook, Instagram, Microsoft, or Apple that pour its theirources into constructing virtual reality products and setting up the metaverse; therefore, it is a technological concept that goes beyond our current universe of neatly delineated physical and virtual worlds, where the new generations create their new digital communication universe.Advancing technology is driving increased connectivity, enabling communication and immersion experiences that were not possible until recently. Information sharing, sensing, and simulation are all advancing rapidly and becoming more interconnected thanks to the newfound ubiquity of high-speed advanced networking and the availability and affordability of technology to render convincing three-dimensional worlds.The metaverse is a combination of multiple elements of technology, like virtual reality, augmented reality, and video where users “live” within a digital universe and where inklings of the metaverse already exist in online game universes such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox.The metaverse intends to go one step further: in a continuation of the very idea of Facebook, it intends to bring social relations even further into the digital environment, seizing on economic relations to justify and finance the project. This will require the development of new technologies, more practical and sensitive sensors, and affordable devices for households, as once were the computer, car, or radio receiver, the creation of financial products compatible with the Metaverse, cryptocurrency, and blockchain systems, as well as products that introduce their use and usage skills among the general public.