Bottom line: Facebook's metaverse vision might involve the slew of younger users who avoid its social media platform wandering around in virtual worlds, but many from Generation Z are pretty apathetic toward the concept, with half of the teens who participated in a recent survey saying they were unsure or uninterested in purchasing a VR device.
Financial firm Piper Sandler's biannual Gen Z research project (via Fast Company) surveyed 7,100 teens about multiple subjects, including "the metaverse." While 50% admitted to having little or no intention of buying a VR device to access the virtual space, 26% said they already own such a device, and 9% said they were interested in making a purchase.
Check out our feature, The Metaverse: What Is It, and Why Should You Care?
Of the 26% of participants who own a VR device, just 5% use it daily, and a massive 82% use theirs less than a few times per month. This is despite 68% of the teens identifying as gamers.
Another part of the survey asked about NFTs and the blockchain, areas set to be integral parts of the metaverse. While 87% had heard of crypto, just 11% had traded in them. When it comes to NFTs, 61% had heard of non-fungible tokens, and 8% of that group had bought them.
A different survey, from Morning Consult, found that 56% of millennials (born between 1980 and 1996) and 51% of Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012) were interested in using the metaverse, but the former group's interest fell to around 50% and the latter's to less than half when it came to Meta's Horizon Worlds and Horizon Workrooms.
Elsewhere, TikTok is named the favorite social media app, beating Snapchat for the first time. The Chinese-owned app's ad revenue is predicted to hit $11 billion this year, more than Twitter and Snapchat combined.
Amazon is named teens' favorite e-commerce site, Nike the favorite clothing and footwear brand, and Chick-fil-A the favorite restaurant.