ABSTRACT
The great leap to the VR (virtual reality) interface is the greatest technological bet for the turn of the century. The decided and flagrantly public bet of companies such as Facebook for the accelerated development of this technology, seeking its implementation in the foreseeable future, has provoked countless reactions and crossed analyzes in social networks, media, and academia.
The effort of these analysts is focused on determining how this technology will be implemented, what effect it will have on society, and the different human activities it will affect in its development. How it will be perceived by the population, and how the promised but nebulous goal of “creating a parallel reality in the cloud” will be fulfilled. A perspective that has led to parallels being drawn with existing digital communities in forums, apps, and online games.
In this sense, speculation is taking as an example the closed and/or simulated economies existing in online games, which have evolved from the inflationary features of many mobile-tablet apps, through the famous World of Warcraft auction house, to “Second Life” or the modern trading of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. In many ways, the “creation” of the metaverse has already taken place, and the intention to build around it a layer of virtual technology seems merely an attempt by big tech giants to stay relevant. But whatever the degree of credence that may be given to this claim, the fact is that how this addition to reality is being proposed has many links in common with gamification processes (Rúas-Araújo and Barrientos-Báez, 2020). Suddenly, virtual offices and investment apps take on a playful appearance that can be misleading. The metaverse, as a product, makes use of attractiveness and neuro-communication tools to sell itself. And it will continue to do so, employing metadata to conclude entire customer demographics, luring them with emotional appeals, and manipulating them with advanced advertising and communication techniques (Moreno López, 2018).
Thus, we will analyze what is known about the phenomenon from the point of view of neuro-communicative theory and its tools and try to conclude about the means of promoting the new idea, and its future effects on the increasingly digitized society.
