'Review' – The beginning of a new era: Metaverse

It's pretty uncommon for a single word or concept to receive more than 1,000 definitions on #UrbanDictionary. For example, the term "introvert" has 377, and "awkward" has 94. But the word metaverse gets 1214 definitions! That's more than 2x as many as either of those words.

We live in an era where many technologies provide the considerable potential to deliver a new digital era. And that era is named as Metaverse era. The world of virtual reality, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and the developing design of devices is just beginning to embrace future changes in the realm of technology. These changes will have a significant impact on the lifestyle of all the people around the world.

The concept of metaverse has increasingly become part of our day-to-day discourse. The word "metaverse" is often used interchangeably with "virtual reality," but in truth, these are not synonyms. However, the two terms are similar in that they are both used to describe a digital space that takes you outside your physical world.

We have been introduced to virtual reality in the last few months, slowly seeping into daily life. Virtual reality isn't just a way to kill time but a way to make money and interact with others worldwide.

Everyone knows that video gaming is one of the most popular hobbies globally, with many people participating. Video gaming has taken a new turn with the emergence of virtual reality, where you can immerse yourself into a digital world. With virtual reality, you can now play games and experience lessons at school, visit foreign countries, and do more! These all resemble that our kids (or the upcoming generations) will be the majority users of the metaverse, where their entire world can be there in a Virtual Representation.

Virtual reality is going to be the future. So, the question marks how are we going to learn about the virtual world? How are marketers going to market? Will the Ads, campaigns, awareness be the same? Will the psychology of learning and memory for online persuasion and marketing be the same?

Psychology of learning.

1.????Classical conditioning is a relation between a previously neutral stimulus and a stimulus that naturally evokes a response. For instance, the pictorial warning for the dangers of smoking on cigarette boxes is a mandate for most countries. The neutral stimulus is smoking, and the unconditioned stimulus is the feeling of regret or disgust after seeing the warning on the packet. These draw out feelings of fear from the individual, resulting in an unconditioned response. After conditioning through repeated exposure to the pictorial warning, the cigarettes will eventually evoke a conditioned response: feelings of fear/disgust that should occur without the unconditioned stimulus (the images).

2.????Operant conditioning: The use of positive or negative reinforcements to modify an individual's behavior is called operant conditioning. A person draws coordination between a behavior and a consequence. We usually treat our dogs when they sit—positive reinforcement with an increase in behavior. After which, the dog knows if he sits next time, he will get a treat.

3.????Observational learning: Learning from seeing and imitating similar acts. Kids generally display the same kind of behavior as what they have seen.

To answer the questions, how will the psychology of learning impact the virtual world. The impact can happen in several augmented ways—operant conditioning of using virtual reality and then subconsciously becoming an integral part of your life. And observational behaviors' where people imitate what they see.

Psychology of memory.

The website is optimized at the most to its actual potential to make the best use of them. Sometimes, we will optimize the virtual worlds. The websites, in general, are optimized to deliver the message in a better way and communicate with the audience. Memory is absorbing the information, understanding it, and then using it later. The processes involved in memory are encoding, storage and retrieval.

We are humans, and our brains are magnificent. Not all information is saved in a formatted way, like on a computer. For us, some info is like "OH YEAH, I REMEMBER THIS," and sometimes we are like "UMM! I DON'T REMEMBER MUCH," and yes, sometimes we are like "I DON'T REMEMBER AT ALL!"

So how is this memory inflicted with online marketing? Eye-gaze

To understand our audience, we use surveys, experimentation, and A/B testing.

Understand your audience's needs and know what you want to learn about your audience. Do you want to see if they know specific details about the product? Do you then recognize your product? Or they are like, "I THINK SAW I DON'T KNOW MAYBE," then your marketing needs to improve. Use tools, improve the UX/UI, eye tracking, understand the audience behavior. (ex. sticky.ai, hotjar, usertesting, userzoom)

With the evolution of virtual reality, these psychological concepts of learning and memory psychology will remain the same. What changes is how people perceive it.

Recently, my professor asked the class what do we think about metaverse? Is it good or bad? Well, honestly, it doesn't matter if it is good or bad. It's the near future. We will adapt ourselves to a new world of learning and understanding people.

Gaming technology has evolved to a level that people had not imagined. The NFT's are selling at a breakneck pace, and people are buying virtual land for millions.

The pandemic has changed our lifestyle, our behavior our ways to interact with the real world. And with virtual reality, we have more coming. The future holds enormous weightage for data conversion strategies.

In conclusion, the studies of the psychology of learning and memory have proven points. We will incorporate them into a virtual world and see where this takes in all dimensions. The mini degree in Digital Psychology and Persuasion from CXL institute helps me relate to humans, marketing, and the digital world. The psychology of brains and humans has been the same throughout and will be the same for the virtual world. With the concepts of neuromarketing, marketers have to appeal to the subconscious mind and make their mark.

Note: Images are used from Unsplash and Freepik

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