Metaverse: a danger to children and probably you too

Yet it has also arguably increased tensions among people of different political persuasions. It has opened up highly fractious verbal battles - and sometimes physical ones - between opposing sides in the so-called "culture wars". It has caused, or increased, mental health issues - including among those bullied on social media, for example.

Our pre-metaverse internet is probably both the tool most used to promote populist governments and the biggest culprit in promoting wokish divisions.

In the end, as with anything technological, the tools remain amoral. It is we, the moral agents, who decide whether they will be used in healthy or less desirable ways.

The young, however, must be protected from the worst uses of technology.

With that in mind, parents would be well advised to teach their children about at least some of the dangers of the metaverse. Perhaps with as much conviction as they would show when warning their children against drug-taking.

In the interests of demonstrating consistency, every parent might also consider deleting Facebook - and telling their children why they've done it. And every parent will do well to conduct a respectful but firm audit of their children's internet habits. (Not an easy thing to do in practice, I know, but not much about good parenting is easy, is it?

Meta, aka Facebook, has proven time and again that it is either opposed to or incapable of self-regulation. It's not likely to change of its own accord, not with the power of a metaverse behind it.

We citizens - and especially parents - need to vote with our virtual feet. And to urge our politicos to wake up to the dangers posed by a largely uncaring cultural behemoth!