Our Metaverse

Supported by Meta and PROJECT ROCKIT, Emily project managed a national consultation and partnership with leading organisations in youth, mental health, and technology from across Australia.

FOREwORd FROM ThE YOUTh COnSUlTAnTS

Many of us were initially hesitant to contribute to this project. We weren’t sure what value we could add as we are not traditional ‘cybersafety experts’ and have varying experience with digital technologies. However, as we journeyed our way through this consultation, we realised the greatness of this opportunity to shape our future. We realised how the metaverse will impact our lives, regardless of our level of experience, literacy, engagement, love, like or dislike of it. This is why this report is an act of care - both for ourselves and communities to come.

​​It is easy to see how existing technology informs how we live our lives today. However, it is much more challenging to think about how technologies that don’t yet exist will shape our futures. The metaverse will generate untold opportunities, including allowing us to access new experiences that are not limited by our physical ability, geographical location, assigned gender, and much more. We also acknowledge the uncertainty and unease that the metaverse presents - not every problem can be predicted or prevented, nor every need be foreseen. However, we know that this fear of the unknown can translate into avoidance. We believe that we must not shy away from these conversations.

Suppose we don’t involve ourselves in new change. In that case, people with the privilege of not being directly impacted by key concerns will continue to take the lead. They can sleep easy, knowing that this novelty supports their interests, whilst we remain without the opportunity to contribute to decision-making that affects us.

This was a genuine and timely effort to listen to young people, invite us to speak up, and offer an invitation to build the metaverse not just for us, but with us

As Metaverse Youth Consultants, we disrupted the traditional narrative of technological development. We had the true honour of connecting and engaging with the most diverse group of young people across Australia. Many of us who have traversed to the darkest, lowest, and most desperate parts of our minds find healing and meaning in dedicating ourselves to the pursuit of helping others. Our lived and living experiences, excitements, concerns, and recommendations were varied, rich and powerful. As a team, we opened our minds to worlds that many of us have been so afraid of in a way that excited and challenged us in all the right ways. This project has showcased the incredible power of creating an open space for lived experience-led design.

We would like to highlight the immense amount of care and attention put into the project from PROJECT ROCKIT, especially our Project Manager Emily Unity, who has been so endearing and meant so much to build a safe, supported, and trusting space. The team has meaningfully engaged us every step of the way and went to enormous lengths to demonstrate the significance of our effort and expertise. With their help, we have championed an effective and empathetic dialogue, which we know will be received most authentically and used to construct better futures for all.

Each of us will be more connected and invested in the metaverse since now we know it will be shaped by us. Our passion and drive to help build a safe and accessible digital future was genuinely inspiring for each other, and will stay with us well beyond the end of this project. Thank you for reading our report, for listening to our lived experiences, and for building our metaverse with us.

Executive Summary

First, there was the Internet. Then, came social media. The metaverse will be the next chapter in the evolution of social technology – an immersive, three-dimensional social space with the ability to both parallel and completely reimagine our physical world, facilitated by extant and future immersive technologies.

Genuine youth-led action is essential in the creation of an inclusive and safe metaverse. As such, this project is all about centering and valuing young people’s lived and living experiences as vital expertise on how we can proactively build a safe, kind, and inclusive metaverse - “Our Metaverse.”

The project team convened 42 Youth Consultants (aged 18-25) who were nominated by leading organisations in youth, mental health, and technology from across Australia including the Centre for Multicultural Youth, headspace, Indigital, Minus18, Orygen, ReachOut, and UNICEF Australia. The Youth Consultants were engaged in a series of youth-led roundtables to capture young people's hopes, priorities, reservations, and recommendations canvas their expertise in support of the variety of stakeholders responsible for designing, building, and regulating the metaverse.

In assembling our team, diversity and inclusion were prioritised, ensuring participation from several communities at greater risk of encountering negative online experiences. A summary of Youth Consultants' lived experiences is below.

Reflection from Emily Unity

I started volunteering in youth mental health when I was 12 and I became a software engineer when I was 21.

Most people are surprised about my technical background, as I am primarily known for my mental health work. In truth, I rapidly burnt out in the digital space - not from being overworked, but from what I now call "ethical guilt." I discovered that most digital projects were dominated by the voices of a privileged few. "Diversity" was a "nice-to-have", and consultations with marginalised communities were often tokenistic if they were included at all.

This project changed that narrative for me.

The concept of "lived experience engagement" is popular within the mental health sector, but often unknown outside of it. It refers to the act of consulting with communities who have the unique expertise gained through the first-hand experience of an event, as opposed to through second-hand representations constructed by others. Too often is technology built for people, but without them actually involved. In this project, instead of consulting with people who work with, read about, or study diverse young people, we invited the young people to speak for themselves.

This project was led by young people, for young people.

We didn't cram our Youth Consultants into a pre-defined project mould, but instead asked them to guide us and the project followed where they went. We asked questions with compassion and curiosity, exploring their hopes and concerns without expectation or judgement. We continually co-designed, harnessing every opportunity to empower them as genuine decision-makers. We encouraged them to speak in their own words and acted simply as amplifiers. Thus, the vast majority of this report is verbatim - consisting of their powerful stories and hopes for a shared future.

As a young person, I was humbled and incredibly privileged to lead alongside my peers.

As both the project manager and a young person, working alongside my peers was intensely meaningful to me. Their expertise, enthusiasm, and commitment was immeasurable and will be a true source of inspiration for me far beyond this project. I cried with happiness when we shared VR spaces and cannot wait to share future XR spaces. Thanks to them, this report holds invaluable and profoundly exciting potential for the digital future that will affect us all.

There should be nothing about us, without us.

Lived experience engagement should be non-negotiable. It is a human right to be involved in decision-making that affects us. Traditional decision-makers have a responsibility to share power and equitably support marginalised communities in building better futures - both offline and online. This report contains many of the imperative ingredients we need for a digital future that is built not just for us, but with us as well.

However, this report is just the beginning.

We must act. The path forward is not paved with passivity. We must resist the actions, ideas, and institutions that divide us. We must actively address ignorance with education, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with compassion.

Thank you for reading this report and I look forward to working with you to build Our Metaverse.