An earlier study has shown that remote workers may feel more anxious and frustrated working in the metaverse. The study found that 11% of participants felt so uncomfortable they couldn’t complete the study for even one day, which left their tasks incomplete.
Individuals and companies are betting that the metaverse will play an important role in the future work environment. It allows people to do tasks remotely from their computers. A recent study by Microsoft Research, Coburg University, Cambridge University, and the University of Primorska paints a completely different picture.
The report titled “Quantifying VR’s Effects for One Week” compared 16 workers working in different environments to develop their tasks. It was done over a 40-hour week. These results were mostly negative and suggested that the current metaverse may not be sufficient to support work-based applications.
The study found that people who used the metaverse setup reported feeling more frustrated, more anxious, and more strain than their normal work setup. The subjects reported feeling less productive overall.
A further 11% of participants couldn’t complete the work experiments even for a single day due to migraines and discomfort when using the VR.
Remote Work Links
While metaverse tech is currently connected to entertainment and gaming technologies, it is expected that remote work will be one of the key future applications of this industry. A recent survey by Globant (an Argentinian software company) found that 69% of the surveyed believed that metaverse technology will be a key part of that application.
The study’s results show that the technology of today will make this task more difficult. However, not all of the results are negative. The study found that participants were able overcome the limitations of metaverse tech as well as initial discomfort. The study’s team calls for further investigation into the effects of long-term productive work in VR settings in the future.
