The Turning Point

Digital transformation is reshaping society impacting on lifestyles. Are we facing a significant turning point toward a “New normal”? The research analyses, the present, mid-, and long-term impacts of this digital transformation on society starting from the most significant events that characterised the evolution and pervasiveness of cyber technology. The pandemic accelerated this process pushing citizens to go digital, sometimes forgetting some wise principles. The result is a cyber-based society relaying on “digital”. This pillar is quite fragile, potentially subject to attacks and suitable for top-down discrimination. The Internet distributes “homogenised” content all-over the world that can jeopardise cultural identities. Citizens increasingly live in cyber-bubbles, have cyber-mediated human relations. They experience the world via a cyber device mediated approach, which are biased by mainstream on opinion dynamics and nudging. The Metaverse, one of the foreseeable risks is a kind of addiction to this “parallel life” training users to shift from real to Meta-life blurring the border between them. Future research development following the risk assessment phase will focus on mitigation of potential drawbacks.