A study published earlier this month found that working in the metaverse with currently available tools can decrease employee productivity and increase frustration and anxiety related to remote work The study found. Eleven percent of the study’s participants were so uncomfortable that they were unable to complete tasks unfinished, even for a day.
Metaverse needs to be upgraded to support remote work
Companies and individuals are betting that the metaverse, an alternative digital representation of our world, will play an important role in the future of work by allowing people to complete tasks remotely. However, a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Coburg, the University of Cambridge, Primorska University, and Microsoft Research offers a different view on the matter.
20} The reporttitled “Quantifying the Impact of Working in VR for a Week”compared the performance of 16 different workers deploying tasks in normal environments and common metaverse settings during a 40-hour work week. The results were mostly negative, suggesting that today’s metaverse may still be limited in its ability to support work-based applications.
According to this study, people reported negative results using the metaverse setting, experiencing 42% more frustration, 11% more anxiety, and about 50% more eye strain compared to the regular work setting. Additionally, subjects also stated that they felt less productive overall.
In addition, 11% of subjects were unable to complete a full day of work experiments due to several factors, including migraines related to the VR setting and lack of comfort during use.
Remote Work Links
While metaverse tech is currently linked to gaming and entertainment technologies, one important future application of this industry is to enable remote work considered to be the ability to work remotely. In a recent survey conducted by Argentine software company Globant, 69% of those surveyed said that metaverse tech will play an important role in that application.
However, the results of this survey show that today’s technology makes that task difficult. However, not all are negative. As the study progresses, it also turns out that participants can overcome the limitations and initial discomfort of metaverse technology, and the team behind the study calls for further research in the future related to the effects of long-term productive work in a VR setup.
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