What do people actually want to do in the metaverse?

The metaverse has come a long way from a science fiction term to being incorporated into the long-term plans of many recognizable brands and businesses. As it stands now, the metaverse is a collection of virtual realities, with various big players building their own vision of metaverse worlds.

In a new report, Unlocking the Metaverse, YouGov explores the opportunities that the metaverse has in store for consumers and brands. We defined the metaverse as virtual worlds where you can create an electronic version of yourself and interact in these worlds on your devices—whether it be for work, play, relaxation or socializing.

Digging into the report, we asked respondents in the UK and US about the specific activities that they would want to use the metaverse for. Let’s look at a few of these interests to see where people’s curiosities and opportunities for brands lie.

Travel

The metaverse has the potential to deliver the scenery and sounds of far-off destinations without the expense and time required to travel there. People can test out and explore the places they’ve never been to or go back to destinations they’ve been to before but have been itching to return to.

There appears to be a big opportunity for the travel industry and metaverse applications; one in five consumers in the UK (21%) and US (22%) say they would be interested in visiting a destination they’d like to visit in real life—the most popular response among all other the activities in the poll.

There are many barriers to travel—from physical to political to financial challenges—but the metaverse can help people vault those boundaries and discover the world.

Socialize

Social media is one of the popular ways of staying up to date with friends and family while meeting new people. With the metaverse slated to be the next frontier of the internet, it would make sense that people would want to use it to connect with people from all over the world. After all, what’s the point of having a whole virtual world at your disposal without anyone to share it with?

According to YouGov research, 13% of consumers in the UK say they would be interested in meeting up with friends in the metaverse, rising to 17% among consumers in the US. An additional 14% of US adults say they want to use it to meet new people and 10% of UK adults say the same.

Entertainment

The data indicates that large shares of people see the metaverse as a virtual version of real life or that it is similar to the real world. In fact, many of the things that people want to do in the metaverse run parallel to what they’re already doing in their day-to-day lives.

These include activities such as attending concerts, playing video games, going shopping, watching sports and going to the movies. The key difference? People can do all of this via an immersive experience all the while transcending geographical boundaries.

Download the latest YouGov analysis, sourced from our proprietary custom research and enriched with YouGov Profiles, on the UK and US Metaverse future and learn:

• How people are understanding and defining the metaverse
• Which brands resonate most with Metaverse Trialists & Metaverse Curious audience segments
• The activities, attitudes, and desires driving current and potential users into the Metaverse
• The motivations and concerns of various audiences across the Metaverse adoption cycle

Explore our living data – for free.

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