Air travel is making a comeback. Airports are preparing for more flyers this summer than they've had since the pandemic began.But even if you're itching to get to your island vacation or attend your cousin's wedding that's been rescheduled for the third time, the thought of getting on an airplane might fill you with dread.About 40% of Americans feel some fear at the thought of flying, and between 2.5% and 6.5% of people in the U.S. actually experience a phobia of flying.If you'll do almost anything to avoid reaching cruising altitude, these tips can help.

Back In The Plane

Flying is known as the safest form of long-distance travel – and dying from a plane accident is extremely rare. So why do our brains hang on to the very extraordinary instances when something goes wrong?It comes down to confirmation bias, which makes us look for evidence that supports our existing beliefs.It takes time and practice to break through the fear. Don't be too hard on yourself if trying to reason with your fear doesn't get you very far at first.

Talk Yourself Down from Dread

Exposure therapy is the idea that being exposed to something you're afraid of over and over again calms down your limbic system so it doesn't fire up as fast. That could mean less anxiety in the long run. Before you move to the next level of exposure, make sure your fight-or-flight response is less active.It could look something like this:<ul><li>Watch YouTube videos of planes taking off. </li><li>Watch videos of planes actually flying. </li><li>Listen to audio of a flight in turbulence.</li><li>Go to the airport and watch planes take off. </li><li>Get on a plane. </li></ul>

Face Your Fear, Repeatedly but In Small Doses

When we're really, really anxious, we can't think straight.The key is to try to connect to your rational, thinking brain. When we really focus on thinking, like doing a math problem, our emotional brain calms down.Try a crossword puzzle or sudoku, reading a really juicy romance novel (we've got recs!) or getting through a pile of paperwork. Board your flight with plenty of distractions.

Be Distracted

During a rough flight, your instinct might be to take slow, deep breaths to calm down. But don't try to stop the experience.Instead, try labelling your feelings. Remind yourself that your body is having a normal response to a perceived threat.Of course, that's different from feeding your anxiety by telling yourself, "Oh, my God, the plane is going to crash. Oh, my God, something bad is going to happen!"After you've named your fear, go back to the facts you gathered about aviation safety, and remind yourself that you're still safe.

If You Hit Turbulence, Don't Force Yourself to Calm Down

Fast-acting medications like Xanax or Valium can be useful tools. But take them as short-term anxiety killers, and do not rely on them for the long-term.Whatever you do, don't self-medicate or mix prescription pills with alcohol.

Consult with A Doctor About Medication, if You Feel You Might Need It

If you're totally comfortable, you're at home never facing your fear. If you're totally uncomfortable, it feels like you're always on the verge of a panic attack.Finding a middle ground means: You're out of your comfort zone, but you're going toward something that matters, instead of just having anxiety, you are capitalizing on that anxiety to propel you toward something that matters.Think about what matters to you: Maybe you love to explore new places, or really want to meet someone.Figure out what's worth working through your fear.

Be Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable: Find The Middle Ground

Whether you're a nervous flyer, you'll do almost anything to avoid flying or you have an actual flying phobia, these tips from associate professor of psychiatry Luana Marques, Ph.D. can help you overcome a fear of flying.  

Stashed ideas

6 tips to help you overcome your fear of flying : Life Kit

<ul>
<li>Social cognitive theories are based on observing and learning from observing and seeing outcomes, which is by nature highly motivational.</li>
<li>We are more likely to internalize or adopt a behaviour if we believe that the outcome is positive and achievable.</li>
<li>Before-and-afters provide proof that certain outcomes are possible.</li>
<li>They are also great marketing.</li>
</ul>

The Before And After Picture: Why We Can’t Resist a Transformation

The Federal Trade Commission has strict guidelines about verbiage in these types of ads.Diets frequently fail, which is why so often you’ll see in the fine print of dramatic weight loss pictures: “Results not typical.".Facebook has also banned these pictures in advertising on its platform.WW, a company with a history of dramatically debuting the weight loss of various celebrity endorsers in big ad reveals, banned the use of before and after images in its ads in 2018.

Before-And-After Photos Are Controversial

<ul><li>Alexis Conason thinks these images are fundamentally flawed because they come from a place of self-hatred and encourage toxic dieting culture.</li><li>Erin Parks, a clinical psychologist, says, “There's no data to suggest that they help motivate people to lose weight in a healthy way.”</li><li>A good rule of thumb is that the before and after images for things you can change (e.g., teeth straightening, hairstyle, painting a room) can be inspirational. Looking at things you cannot change (body build, height, etc.) might be counterproductive.</li></ul>

Not Good For Our Psyche

People love before-and-after pictures. But do they do more harm than good?

Why we can’t look away from before-and-after pictures

There are no definitive answers yet as to how the Metaverse will affect mental health and whether or not digital addiction will be an issue as a result. This issue of Metaverse addiction and how it will affect mental health and digital addictions, in general, is never too early to begin discussing.

Metaverse And Mental Health

The Metaverse is three-dimensional in comparison to the two-dimensionality of the internet. Avatars, or digital selves, are used to provide an immersive experience. Virtual and augmented reality may be used in the Metaverse to give users the feeling of being "within" the internet and interacting with other people, things, and assets in a virtual world. The future of the Metaverse is certain to bring a wide range of mental, physical, and emotional advantages, but there are also going to be drawbacks and undesirable side effects.

2022: The Year Metaverse Emerges

The Metaverse, according to a Facebook (Meta Platforms) leaker working on it, will be very addicting.The brain is the source of addiction and mental illness. Affecting the brain's pleasure centre, addictive substances and behaviours may lead to an addiction. Neurotransmitters like dopamine, which are associated with emotions of pleasure, are released in the brain when drugs or activities are associated with such sensations. To put it another way, the person has grown physically and mentally dependent on it.

Metaverse Addiction

Dopamine is released as you progress in a video game, such as through advancing to the next level. Every time you get a follow, like, remark, or another kind of interaction on social media, dopamine is released. Dopamine is released every time you make a profit or lose money in cryptocurrency trading and investing. It is projected that all virtual interactions would be more intensive and exciting than what we presently experience via our smartphones, tablets, and laptops. If you were to compare the Metaverse to fentanyl or crack cocaine, it would deliver a more intense and fast-acting high.

Constant Dopamine

Excessive digital usage has been linked to a wide range of mental health disorders, including sadness, irritability, stress, paranoid thoughts, somatic symptoms, and psychoses, in addition to other things. Virtual reality is utilized to treat PTSD, phobias, and other anxiety disorders, as well as delusions and hallucinations, while simultaneously highlighting the detrimental effects that technology may have. Modern technology has also transformed our access to both professional and non-professional sources of support, allowing us to seek and receive assistance from a wide spectrum of people.

How the Metaverse Affects Mental Health

Addiction to digital media may have disastrous repercussions on a person's physical, mental, emotional, financial, and social well-being. As a result, if you or someone you care about is experiencing symptoms of digital addiction, you should get professional assistance from a digital addiction expert. You should get help from an addiction therapist or psychiatrist specialized in digital addiction if you cannot control or limit your digital usage on your own.

Digital Media Addiction

In addition to reducing our ecological footprint and advancing medicine and education, the Metaverse promises to revolutionize our current technological age. In any case, much like with other forms of current technology, the Metaverse might lead to the same kinds of digital addictions and mental health problems that have plagued us in the past, such as Internet Addiction Disorder.

The Bottom Line

A new digital universe called the Metaverse will be created by the year 2022, but, There are no definitive answers yet as to how it will affect mental health

How Does the Metaverse Influence Our Mental Health?

“This is not a race against the machines. If we race against them, we lose. This is a race with the machines. You’ll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots. Ninety percent of your coworkers will be unseen machines.”

According to Kelly, much of the future technological forces are inevitable. Twelve trends will change the ways in which we work, learn and communicate. If you can position yourself to leverage these changes, you will do well in the next three decades.

The future of technology

In the future, everything will depend on upgrading. We will be perpetual “newbies” trying to keep up. We’ll be in a constant flux of learning and change. Being in constant motion, we will no longer notice the motion, and big changes can catch us off guard.  We have instant access to over 60 trillion pages on the web, from music, encyclopaedia, weather forecasts, satellite images, news, road maps, stock quotes. No one anticipated this wealth of material created by the audience. Yet the greatest accomplishments are still ahead of us. In terms of the internet, nothing has happened yet.

Becoming: Always upgrading services and subscriptions

In the future, everything will be intelligent. Genuine AI will plug into the grid, like electricity. You will take X and add AI. For example, phone cameras added computation and erased the need for glass lenses. Similar changes will happen in other areas such as chemistry, investing, music, and law. In this century, 70% of jobs will be replaced by automation - yours included. Our jobs will be to teach machines how to do our old jobs.

Cognifying: Making everything smarter using cheap AI

In the future, everything will be copied. Our previous economy was built on warehoused full of fixed goods. Now we value intangibles. Cars become transportation services. Desktop files move from webs and pages to clouds and streams. Now we don’t desire free music and movies. Instead, we want the flexibility to remix songs, sample soundtracks and link things to other things.

Flowing: Depending on unstoppable streams in realtime for everything

In the future, everything will be linked and tagged.  Wikipedia is a stream of edits and the first networked book. In the future, all information will be cross-linked. We watch our screens, and our screens will watch us.

Screening: Turning all surfaces into screens

Society will shift from one where we own assets to one where instead we will have access to services at all times. In the future, we will have everything available immediately, without owning it. Uber owns no vehicles. Airbnb owns no real estate. So whatever you need, you will be able to get the best and latest.

Accessing: You will own nothing

In the future, everything will be shared. Over 1.4 billion people share their lives on Facebook in an informational commune.  The volume of creative work in the next decade will far surpass the last 50 years. More artists, authors, musicians. Any idea, thought, or artefact can be contributed to and experienced by anyone if they want.

Sharing: Collaboration at mass scale

In the future, you won't have the time to read anything. We'll need to filter down what we like, what our friends like, the stuff we should like, and that which would surprise us.

Filtering: Harnessing intense personalization to anticipate our desires

In the future, everything will rely on remixing. For example, a Hollywood blockbuster can take a million people-hours to produce, but millions of video clips are shared every day. These clips rely on remixing. We will expect scroll-back functions. In the future, immersive environments and virtual realities will be able to scroll back to earlier states.

Remixing: Recombining parts in all possible ways

In the future, we will record everything we do - car movements, highway traffic, mail, cell phone locations, credit card transactions, internet activities, fitness data. Measuring all the aspects of ourselves will create personal treatments and medicines.  Billions of things will track themselves too.  For example. every car manufactured since 2006 records miles driven, speed, sudden braking, speed of turns, and gas mileage.

Tracking: Employing total surveillance

In the future, everything will be immersive. 
Virtual reality feels authentic. The best VR will create a deep engagement with other people, even enabling you to make eye contact with people in VR.

Interacting: Immersing ourselves inside our computers to maximize engagement

Billions of connected people are creating a new level of organisation. Wikipedia was considered to be impossible. Crazy and improbable things happen all the time, and are then broadcasted on YouTube. 
Impossible things happening now are because a new level of organisation is enabled by instant connectivity. In the future, we will have a trillion times increase.

Questioning: Promoting good questions. The improbable will be the new normal

In the future, everything will become part of one very large thing.
People will link themselves together on a planetary scale. Each time we click a link, we train the global mind. In 30 years, people will look back and say, "that was the birth of the era we are living in."

Beginning: Constructing a system connecting all humans and machines into a global matrix

Kevin Kelly - a digital visionary - describes the twelve trends of the next 30 years that will change how we live.

“A quintessential work of technological futurism.” – James Surowiecki, strategy + business, “Best Business Books 2017 – Innovation” From one of our leading technology thinkers and writers, a guide through the twelve technological imperatives that will shape the next thirty years and transform our lives Much of what will happen in the next thirty years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion. In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives—from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture—can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Kelly both describes these deep trends—interacting, cognifying, flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and are codependent on one another. These larger forces will completely revolutionize the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, says Kelly, it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. Kelly’s bright, hopeful book will be indispensable to anyone who seeks guidance on where their business, industry, or life is heading—what to invent, where to work, in what to invest, how to better reach customers, and what to begin to put into place—as this new world emerges.

The Inevitable

the Metaverse has been positioned as both a successor state to the mobile internet, as well as a platform for human leisure, labour, and existence at large. The success of this vision depends on whether the Metaverse has a thriving economy. That includes competition and a constant cycle of disruption/displacement, a large number of profitable enterprises (especially small-to-medium businesses), capital mobility and strong consumer spending.

The Tenets Of Metaverse

The most common of the existing payment rails in the US are ACH (“Automated Clearing House”), Fedwire, CHIPs (“Clearing House Interbank Payment System”), Credit Cards, PayPal, and peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo. These rails have different requirements, merits, and demerits.

The Existing Payment Rails

Wires can only be used between (and thus through) banks, are only available during non-holiday weekdays and during business hours, transactions are not reversible, cannot be used to request funds (so it doesn’t work for credit card payments, invoices, etc.), and have high sending fees (e.g. Chase pays <$0.15 per wire, but charges $25–45 per outgoing wire), receiving fees ($15 to receive), and additional fees for non-USD wire, failed wires, confirmations, etc.

Limitations Of Wire Transfer

Credit cards are another key payment rail. They involve swiping a physical card (or entering credit card information), after which a credit card machine or remote server captures account information and digitally sends it to the merchant’s bank, which then submits it to the customer’s credit card provider, which either grants or denies the transaction. This process takes one to three days and typically costs merchants 1.5–3.5% of the transaction.

Existing Payment Rails: Credit Cards

Digital payment networks include PayPal, Square, and the Cash App. Individual accounts are primarily funded via ACH or credit card, at which point the platforms then serve as a centralized/single bank used by all accounts. As a result, all transfers between users of the same payment platform are effectively just reassignments of money held by the platform itself.Payments are instantaneous and when money is sent between friends and family, these platforms typically charge no fees. But when a business is paid, 1.5–3% transaction fees to the business are common.

Digital Payment Platforms

In the virtual world, the economy primarily involves goods that only exist virtually, which are bought via purely digital transactions. This economy is also large. Roughly $54B was spent on virtual goods, skins, and lives last year, compared to $42B at the movie box office and $30B on recorded music in 2019. It also poses no systemic financial risk, does not play a critical role in society, and has thousands of market participants and a dozen competing platforms. This should lead to creativity, innovation, and competition in payments.

The Fight to Control Payments in the Metaverse

In truth, the “rails” of the “virtual economy” today are much worse than those of the “real world.” They’re more expensive, cumbersome, and slow to change.As an analogy, the current technology is based on precedents that are closer to the founding of CHIPs in the 1970s than either PayPal or the iPhone.

The State Of The Virtual Payment Rail State

PlayStation and Xbox users need PlayStation Network and Xbox Live IDs to access online games and must usually pay additional monthly fees to access these games, too. Player entitlements (trophies and game purchases) are also forever locked to these platforms. If you buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on PlayStation, you can only ever access it, and many of the achievements from beating it, via PlayStation.

Gaming Consoles Turning Into Subscription Platforms

A household can just as easily buy an Android as an iPhone, or a PlayStation not an Xbox. But in the digital/virtual era, market power comes primarily from network effects and scale. And each of these platforms works hard to lock developers and users to their platforms by forcibly bundling separate businesses, such as hardware, drivers/APIs access, software distribution, payment solutions, services, identities, and entitlements.

The Network Effect

Apple uses its control over the App Store to prevent iOS browsers (whether made by Apple, such as Safari, or others, like Google Chrome) from using most of WebGL, a JavaScript API that allows for complex browser-based 2D and 3D rendering. Apple claims this restriction is for device performance, as native apps typically outperform browser-based experiences that must speak to native drivers through “translators.” However, this policy conveniently prevents developers from making rich games without Apple’s tools which elude its store fees.

No Rich 3D Effects In iOS Browsers

Apple prohibits applications from using its NFC chips for payments, thereby ensuring Apple Pay is the only digital payment solution that can use tap and go. Apple claims this is for security, but third-party developers, such as Marriott and Ford, are able to access the Apple NFC API so users can open doors. This seems like a far more dangerous use case than a $5 coffee.

NFC Double Standard

The very premise of the Metaverse presumes that the “next” platform shifts from hardware-based operating systems and hardware-centric experiences to persistent and ubiquitous virtual simulations. We already see this today. The most popular games in the world, such as Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft, are designed to run on all endpoints, and none requires nor succeeds because of specific hardware (nor are they optimized for any specific devices, either).

Changing Rules Using The Metaverse

If the value in the Metaverse will be primarily driven through virtual worlds and virtual creations, rather than better phones, then we want the most profits going to developers of the virtual platforms and the developers on them. However, you can’t access the Metaverse except through hardware, and every hardware player is fighting to be the (or at least a) payment gateway to the Metaverse. This is why Facebook, which lacks a major operating system, is investing so heavily in Oculus. And why Snap is developing its own AR hardware, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/21/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-were-happy-to-pay-apple-30percent.html?__source=sharebar%7Ctwitter&par=sharebar">while defending Apple’s 30% take</a>.

The New Age Game

Apple does not deserve 30% of a transaction for virtual real estate or virtual avatars that are created by developers that don’t use any of Apple’s standards, built on a virtual platform that runs on nearly every device in the world, and not integrated into any of Apple’s products — all because the end-user has an iPhone (which they might have bought for Apple Photos, iMessage, or superior hardware). Nor should Apple take 30% of a sale price in the event those assets are traded. Or 30% of virtually provided labor or kickstarter-like loans.

The Undeserved Cut

All of the major NFT platforms and blockchain-based worlds are browser-based and lack console releases and mobile applications. These console and mobile platforms control their browsers and, as mentioned earlier, do not support common (and open) standards for complex rendering, rich user input, and more. As a result, developers are forced to choose between impractical fees or mediocre experiences.

The Web Browser Rocks

In the West, these systems would normally be at the mercy of the hardware gatekeepers. However, Tencent grew so powerful so rapidly in China that it even holds leverage over Apple, who allows it to process payment for its Mini Programs without taking a cut. Notably, Facebook asked for the same permissions in the West but was denied — even if it limits payments only to small tips for on-platform creators and waives its own cut.

Yes To WeChat, No To Facebook

Beyond various platform fees, the Metaverse economy is adversely affected by the policy decisions of various virtual platforms and publishers. These policies make it harder for users to spend money, maroons user spending, penalizes users for spending diversity and or using multiple platforms, and limits the utility of all purchases and constrains total investment.

The Challenges of the Proto-Metaverse Economy

Consumer spending today is constrained by the knowledge that no games last forever. Think, as an example, of anything you might buy on holiday but can’t bring home in your suitcase — a Boogie Board, a water bottle, a costume for Día de los Muertos. Expected obsolescence always constrains spending.

 Expected Obsolescence

Open economies, trading, and increases to commercial item value inevitably trend towards play-to-earn mechanics or behaviors, which can quickly devolve into “work” that ruins a game’s sense of fun and fairness. And the larger the Metaverse economy and more firm the ownership rights, the harder it is for a developer to correct this. There is a reason why, today, almost all of the major NFT/blockchain-based “games” are actually centered on collecting or speculation, rather than more traditionally-defined gameplay.

The New Game Economics

Over time, developers will figure out how to support “Metaverse” business models. And they’ll use the Metaverse’s comparatively larger economy to quickly surpass more “legacy” game makers. Free-to-play gaming, after all, was once considered a radical business model that at best would lead to lower revenues for a given game and at worst cannibalize the industry. Instead, it proved to be the best way to monetize and a core driver behind video gaming’s cultural ascendance.

Transversing Towards The Metaverse Business Model

Some economic solutions will likely emerge to facilitate the transition to an open Metaverse economy, too. For example, developers might bake degradation into an asset’s code — this skin works for 100 hours of use, or 500 games, or three years total, during which it slowly wears. Alternatively, users might have to pay an additional fee to bring an item from one publisher’s title to a competing publisher’s (just as many goods have import duties in the ‘real world’). Or pay more in the first place for an “interoperable edition.”

New Solutions For Upcoming Problems

A decentralized database isn’t needed to prove or manage asset ownership (if the NBA or Disney or Valve said who owned an image file or virtual currency, everyone would believe them). Nor is it needed to safely and quickly transfer money (Alipay and PayPal move billions per day via purely digital networks). What matters is not whether the blockchain is technically superior in a given way, especially compared to its current, point-in-time alternatives. Rather, it’s whether blockchain standards can more effectively enhance developer profits over time, and in turn, grow the Metaverse economy.

The Potential of Blockchain and the Metaverse

The decentralized, permissionless, trustless, automatically compensating blockchain model has several benefits. Most important is the fact that developers and users can invest their time and capital with confidence that a blockchain’s policies, incentives, or economics won’t change arbitrarily over time, or in pursuit of rent-seeking.

An Ideal Blockchain Network

If the ethos of Web 2.0 was “don’t be evil,” a blockchain-based web 3.0 is “can’t be evil."

Blockchain’s permissionless, trustless and financial systems also enable their networks to be widely decentralized in operations and adoption. The former minimizes control, increases performance time and liquidity, while decreases gas fees, while the latter increases network effects and utility. Programmable tokens, meanwhile, enable developers to easily issue governance rights to their users and reward contributions.

The Future Is Decentralized

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, can be bought, sold, and traded globally and across almost all wallets (whereas PayPal cannot send money to a Venmo user directly) and in seconds to minutes, with no intermediary taking temporary custody. Users do not need a bank account, nor is it necessary to join a mega-platform such as Square, Microsoft, or Sea Limited. Sellers and businesses don’t need to negotiate, register, or sign long-term agreements with crypto rails, either.

Crypto Economy Shows The  Way

Regardless of whether cryptocurrencies become a common form of payment in the “real world”, they’re increasingly being used in gaming via NFTs and blockchain-based studios - and for initial user payments, in-game currencies, and UGC payments. As a result, the “crypto Metaverse” suffers from substantially less currency fragmentation than today’s gaming ecosystem (i.e. Minecoin, V-Bucks, COD Points, Robux, etc.), supports two-way exchanges.

Virtual Assets

The NFT(Non-Fungible Tokens) market has shown obvious signs of excess speculation over the past year. But it’s also clear that the hard-coded promises of NFTs — irrevocable ownership, open economies, and the ability to endlessly repurpose virtual assets — has led to substantial consumer spending. Open standards typically struggle to generate greater developer revenues, especially in the media business. Not so in crypto.

NFTs: The Promise Being Delivered

Today, only a tiny fraction of online users and gamers even have a crypto wallet, and almost no brands and games issue NFTs. But irrespective of multi-month dips in the blockchain/crypto/NFT economy, we see more of these groups embrace blockchain-based experiences each month. This produces a virtual cycle that drives more users to register a wallet, mint an NFT, or integrate crypto assets, which also increases the value and utility of all other blockchain products, thereby bringing more to the technology.

The Game Has Just Begun

Blockchain standards also look like the best way to engage today’s major games, gaming platforms, and brands into the emerging Metaverse, too. While companies like Activision Blizzard and Take-Two may recognize the potential of open economies and platforms, they’re unlikely to sign onto any system managed by a competing platform, such as those of Valve and Epic, as they pose too much strategic and financial risk.

The Winner Takes It All

Developers are held back by the worry that, in an open item economy, they might create far more value than they themselves capture. For example, Developer A might produce Skin A for Game A, only for Game A to decline, and Skin A become a popular (and valuable) item in Developer B’s longer running title. In this case, Developer A has actually created content for a competitor that beat them! Or maybe it just turns out that Developer A’s creations have become iconic and highly valuable, thereby netting players orders of magnitude more profit than the developer.

An Open Item Economy

The most disruptive aspect of digitally-native “programmable” payment rails, however, is how it enables greater independent collaboration and funding.Using smart contracts, a new, multi-member entity can be created within minutes. No signing documents are required, nor credit checks, lawyers, government filings, or even direct knowledge of the members. Smart contracts also automatically manage all payment flows, governance rights, information rights, and ‘bylaws.’

Virtual Collaboration and Funding

The role of payments, payment rails, and blockchains in the Metaverse. Part 
VII of ‘THE METAVERSE PRIMER’

Payments, Payment Rails, and Blockchains, and the Metaverse — MatthewBall.vc

All technologies have the potential for good and evil, useful and harmful.
The science-fiction depiction of the Metaverse in Ready Player One showed that a virtual world enables your wildest dreams on-demand while the real world decays because the virtual one is so much better.
A survey uncovered some fears of people, such as:
<ul>
<li>Leaving reality behind</li>
<li>Health concerns</li>
<li>Technological feasibility</li>
<li>World building - who will "own" the Metaverse?</li>
</ul>

The Impact Of Technology

When large portions of humanity are spending time working, playing and connecting in the Metaverse, it will be reasonable to assume we would spend the same amount of time as we do now on our phones, computers and TV.
Later, when virtual reality is indistinguishable from the real world, societies will do everything in virtual reality except for eating, sleeping and using the restroom.
Virtual reality will enable anyone to stay connected, even if they are physically far apart.

Leaving Reality Behind

If our virtual avatars can look however we want and can do anything we want, why would we spend time living healthy?
For the foreseeable future, our physical bodies will be used more than today since we will be moving around more in VR instead of looking at a screen and using our fingers.
The other side is mental health. People may spend more time in the Metaverse to escape their real-world responsibilities. Online bullying can also be a problem.

Health Concerns

The Metaverse is in many ways the next phase of the World Wide Web, from 2D to 3D.
The network facilitating the Metaverse's functionality will need massive upgrades on hardware and software fronts and require significant investments from large and smaller tech companies.

Technological Feasibility

We don't know who will "own" the Metaverse, if anyone.
Most companies will build their own worlds, experiences, shops, etc. While it might be decentralised like the internet, there is a probability that governments will not allow this form of monopoly unless creators can develop a socially acceptable governance structure.
It will take time for developers to learn about best practices as a consistent experience will be vital across worlds.

World Building

The Metaverse Explained Part 4: Challenges | Loup

In the next ten years, especially with Facebook Meta, crypto, NFTs, and online-only content, AR & VR(augmented reality and virtual reality) will absolutely take the world by storm.We will begin to see it everywhere from education, to scientific applications, research, entertainment, navigation, more mundane applications like gestural task assistance, and all the way to complex abstractions of traditionally difficult tasks that require high degrees of domain-specific knowledge.

AR/VR: An Introduction

Augmented RealityIn AR, reality is overlaid with user interfaces, mixed with effects, modified, manipulated, and otherwise presented to the user as an augmented version of their normal reality.Virtual RealityBy contrast, in VR, reality is fully replaced by a virtual environment which can be setup however the product team likes, within the constraints of the platform that the application is running on.

Defining AR And VR

AR takes the feed from front-facing cameras, LIDAR (Light Detecting and Ranging), and other inputs, creates depth-maps, and uses constant field-watching to update the UI and feedback through the device. This environment co-exists with and is interdependent with the real world.VR takes the device viewport, hijacks it, and superimposes a 2D and 3D mixed environment that the user can interact with. This environment exists outside and independent of the real world.

The Workings Of AR/VR

AR/VR applications will be surface-less, multi-type input, and will allow for real-time shared experiences. Surface-less interactions:Understand right now that you’re more than likely used to designing for either a mouse and keyboard or touch-screen respectively, but in AR/VR you will have fully virtual, 3D interactions with no borders or surface.

UI And UX Designers: Surface Less Interactions!

We can assume that most interactions will be visual, track with eye movement, thumb controls, reach-depth, speech recognition, head-tilt gestures, and a whole lot more.The reason it’s so important to consider these additional types of input, is that they will fundamentally change the way that users interact with your product, and will come to expect your product to react in turn.

Multiple Input Types

You will need to account for real-time shared experiences between users. This is NOT a 1:1 design process anymore, it is one-to-many, and then many-to-many.This will constitute a HUGE shift in the way that applications are designed, because the state of your application for one user will change depending upon the state of your application across other users who are sharing the same experience.

Real-Time Shared Experiences

In order to start designing in AR/VR, we have to understand that we are no longer constrained to a particular device “size” but rather designing for the human eye itself.
This FOV (Field of View) exists between the human eye and the viewport surface.
This is key, because while your interactions are not confined strictly to the viewport’s size, your user’s ability to see them absolutely is.
Your user has a total field of view, but your design needs to fit reasonably within their comfortable cone of standard vision.

How to start designing for AR/VR

<ul>
<li>Zone 1: Great (central) view: Zone 1 is defined as the central-most view of the user, and is where you should put the most important and/or immediately necessary information.</li>
<li>Zone 2: Decent view: Zone 2 exists from the edge of the central view to about 10–15° degrees away from the eye’s central line of sight.</li>
<li>Zone 3: Rough view: Zone 3 exists from the edge of the decent view to about another 10–15° away radially. </li>
<li>Zone 4: Nope: Finally, we have Zone 4 which is a no-go, or as I like to call it, the Nope Zone.</li>
</ul>

The Viewing Zones

Understanding augmented reality, virtual reality, and designing for AR/VR experiences.

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You can start off with local competitors. Add them to your list of Instagram accounts you want to steal followers from.&nbsp;But how do you find similar accounts to yours from elsewhere in the world? Many would think that searching by hashtag and looking at the Top Posts section would be an effective technique. It isn’t.&nbsp;

Identify competitors who you can steal followers from

<ul><li>Do they post often? Look at the time between their posts.</li><li>How many posts have they made? Anything under 100 means they’re either on their way to leaving Instagram or they’re a relatively new user.</li><li>How long have they been on Instagram? Scroll down their profile for a bit and see how old their posts get.</li><li>Do they use hashtags? Some people don’t fully grasp what they’re meant for or they don’t know how to research Instagram hashtags.&nbsp;</li><li>Follower to Following Ratio: If someone has a ton of followers but they hardly follow anyone themselves, they’re unlikely to follow you.</li></ul>

Determine which of your competitors’ followers are most likely to follow you

<ul><li>Ask engaging, in-depth questions about someone’s experiences.&nbsp;</li><li>Look for photos with lower engagement than their average and leave a genuine compliment for them.&nbsp;</li><li>Like a bunch of recent posts. Yeah, it’s that simple. As a rule of thumb, you’ll gain 2–3 new followers for every 100 photos you like.</li><li>Follow people. Follow people that are the most likely to follow you back: users with a 1:1 ratio of followers and following.</li></ul>

Engage with people that will fall in love with your Instagram content.

Find your local and global competitors. Determine their most valuable followers, then engage with them. Simple.

How to Steal Your Competitors’ Instagram Followers

Pinterest is grouped with other social media channels and in some aspects, contain social aspects itself. However, people use Pinterest more like a serach engine than a social platform -- which is why you should consider using Pinterest Ads.

Bothering With Pinterest Ads

Like other platforms, Pinterest offers a variety of ad types or formats that marketers can choose from depending on their goals for the campaign.  There are different campaign objectives to choose from such as:<ul><li>Building awareness: Brand or Video Views</li><li>Driving consideration: Formerly known as 'Traffic'</li><li>Get conversions: Drive people to take actions on your website or Catalog sales</li></ul>

Step #1: Choose a Pinterest Ad Format 

Pinterest has its own code that you can embed on your site to help track and target visitors. One of the minor inconveniences of their tracking code is that it can easily get removed during routine site updates, so if you update your site, you'll want to make sure that you didn't accidentally remove the Pinterest tracking code.  Pinterest also uses a keyword-based targeting system which allows you to build an audience based on their serach terms and interests.

Step #2: Setting Up Targeting

Just like any paid advertising platform, you'll need to test and learn which strategy and creative works best for you and your products, and serves your goals. Keep the following in mind when designing your ad creative:<ol><li>Use bright imagery</li><li>Include your logo (can be animated to pop out more)</li><li>Add a headline/call to action</li><li>Add a description to describe your pin</li><li>Include a solid call to cation to compel your audience to click on the ad</li></ol>

Step #3: Designing Your Creative

Pinterest Ads: How to Get Started

Two-factor authentication is a second layer of security when signing in. It usually involves receiving a text message with a special code whenever you sign into your account.Having this substantially reduces the likelihood of your inbox getting hacked.

Tip #1: Use two-factor authentication on your inbox

The fifth amendment allows you to keep your Password secret. But a court can compel you to unlock your phone with your thumbprint. Also, you can’t exactly change your Thumbprint after an attacker gets ahold of it. An attacker will usually get 10 tries before your phone will completely lock them out.If your 4-digit password is a common one, chang it.

Tip #3: Turn on your phone’s password protection

Passwords <a href="https://medium.freecodecamp.com/360-million-reasons-to-destroy-all-passwords-9a100b2b5001">are inherently insecure</a>, but don't use the same password for more than one place. Remembering a ton of passwords is a hassle but luckily for us there are tons of password managers.

Tip #4: Use different passwords for each service.

Signal is a popular messaging service that got a perfect score from the <a href="https://www.eff.org/node/82654">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>.You can do all the things you would normally do through text messages, like have group messages and send photos and videos, except that everything’s encrypted.

Tip #5: Send private text messages with Signal

Tor stands for “The Onion Router” which is a reference to its use of many onion-like layers to mask network activity. It’s free, open source, and reasonably easy to use.

Tip #7: Browse in private with Tor

Duckduckgo doesn’t track you, but it does have a shortcut to get Encrypted Google searches when you need them. You just need to Prefix your search with !Google.

Tip #8: Search in private

Windows and MacOS have built-in full-disk encryption, but you need to turn it on.

Tip #2: Encrypt your hard drive

Even if you use 'incognito mode' the following parties will still be able to snoop in on your network activity:<ul><li>Internet service providers</li><li>System administrators in charge of the network at your workplace or wherever online</li><li>The maker of your broswer</li></ul>

Tip #6: Your browser's incognito mode isn't private enough

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Carrie Mckay