Letters to the Editor: Metaverse: The new alternate universe?

Imagine you meet your friends and family members not in reality rather in a virtual 3D world which is created artificially. You literally enter this world while sitting in your room by wearing a special headset. Similarly you are working, studying, shopping etc. you do all the things that you can do in the real world but not in reality. Sounds depressing right? Metaverse promises something akin to this for the future and some experts believe that it will eventually replace the internet.

Like Mark Zuckerberg said, "The future is going to be beyond anything we can imagine." The word Metaverse is derived from Greek . It is a prefix that basically means 'beyond' and the verse comes from the word universe. In simple words, we can say that Metaverse is nothing but an artificially created Universe. The word Metaverse was first used in the year 1992 in a science fiction book Snow Crash written by Neal Stephenson. In this novel he talked about a dystopian world. After this a game was also released in the year 2003 called the 'Second Life' where you could create your own virtual world and meet people virtually and do almost anything, but in a virtual world. Recently, many companies tried to make their own Metaverses but the word was made popular once again when Facebook decided to change their company name to 'Meta'.

In recent times there are various technologies that are used in forming a Metaverse. The first one is virtual reality (VR) , the second one is augmented reality, it would mean that some artificial elements mixed with our real world wouldn't be complete virtual reality. An excellent example of this is the Pokemon Go smartphone game.

Additionally block chains and crypto currencies are also mentioned when talking about the Metaverse when money would be spent to buy anything in the Metaverse that can't be real money of course, because everything is digital. And there comes the role of crypto currencies and to keep everything secured from hackers and data breaching comes the role of block chain technology.

But there always remains a question: do people actually want to be in a virtual world or are they happy where they actually belong? What if Metaverse becomes successful in the near future? Just imagine the level of power that person will hold who owns the majority of Metaverse. It is very unethical and dangerous. So will it become popular in the future?

Arunaday Sutradhar

Cotton University

Impact of mobile phones on students

There is no question that a cell phone is an important device. It works for correspondence among associates, companions and relatives. All advancements that give such advantages come with a bunch of downsides. Cell phones enormously affect students.

Over the few years, cell phones have been quickly developing. Initially, they were utilized distinctly to settle on and get decisions. Nonetheless, after twenty years, there are presently cell phones that not just permit you to settle on and get decisions, yet additionally listen to music and take photographs.

Because of the worldwide pandemic, education was imparted online and all students were expected to have a smart phone. But not every person has the financial means to buy a laptop or a computer, so mobiles are a less expensive option and replace the PC in the web-based address.

Having the convenience of a mobile device gives students an edge. Besides online lectures, people can also use it for entertainment such as movies, games, and social media. We now live in a world that is smaller and more connected than ever before just because of mobile phones. More than 95% of students own a smart phone, and 75% of those phones have internet access and apps.

Students presently depend on cell phones to speak to one another and access the steadily changing instructive assets on the web. Cell phones offer students an assortment of advantages and difficulties. Cell phones can either act as a helpful scholarly instrument or an interruption. In addition to being a blessing and a curse to the younger generation, many of these phones are also used for education and entertainment, which leads to bad habits like pornography and cyber crime.

Chandini Bharadwaj

Cotton University

Illiteracy in India

One of India's socio- economic problems is illiteracy. Education is one of the primary needs, besides food, shelter and clothing, to build a strong society. Though the Parliament of India has passed the Constitution 86th Amendment Act, 2002, to make elementary education a fundamental right for children in the age group of 6-14 years, India has only just crossed 74 per cent literacy rate.

Poverty is one of the primary reasons that children are not coming to schools. Not all parts of India have yet been developed equally. Though with time the gender gap appears to be narrowing in some developed places, there is still a wide gender disparity in some other places of the country. The literacy rate is slowing down as everyone is not yet able to get equal access to education. The government seems to have taken many important steps for improving the education system but the education system cannot be taken forward by avoiding other burning socio-economic factors of India.

Therefore, the right to education will be truly fruitful only if the government and the authorities concerned will focus equally on other socio-economic problems like unemployment, poverty, gender discrimination and population growth. The process of measuring the literacy rate in our country needs to change because if a person is able to read and write it doesn't mean that he is getting proper education. The low female literacy rate has a negative impact on family planning and population control in India. Socio-economic problems are inter-related, by focusing more only on one of them will not help in the development of the country.

Aadarshine Rajkhowa

Cotton University

Fake news

One problem that we all faced but never talked about is the emergence of fake news on social media. Fake news spreads faster than any regular news. We people believe what is shown to us in social media platforms. Reports say that false political information spread three times faster than any other false news. And it is the reason for many conflicts in today's world. As we know, nowadays internet is more accessible compared to the earlier days. There are some internet users who seem to believe everything that is present in the internet and start spreading the news without investigating whether the news is fake or genuine.

This happens because of the lack of media literacy and awareness among the people. Sometimes some facts are ignored by people because it becomes hard for everyone to believe what is true and what is not. It is impossible to completely stop the spread of fake news but if the authorities and the cyber cells initiate some campaign to create awareness about fake news and help people distinguish between fake news and real news, it will help to tackle the problem.

Sayanika Singha

Cotton University