I belong to the same age group, essentially (millenials crossing into Gen Zers), though I entered university already at 14, and I always felt, in my youth, greater consanguinity with 1980s culture than 2000s, from science fiction and cyberpunk to hard rock and heavy metal; hence it could be said that despite being still relatively young, I fell into a band gap between generations. All that said, I reckon seamless integration of Real and Virtual a desirable outcome as long as both forms of existence (and many other that could be spawned in the future) aren't declared mutually inconsistent or outright hostile to one another.

Of course, despite all our best intentions, we're almost guaranteed to see some instances of Reality Wars, or Censorship Wars, down the road. When humanity reaches the stars or full-spectrum virtual realms, it will bring along many words that by then shall have ceased to signify objects and subjects previously attached to them. Except one word; this word is war, which always means, and will mean, the same.

But still I don't see these realms as inevitably destined for balkanization and suture (like the process now on fire between Russia, land of my birth, and Western world).

However Virtual could be seriously considered as a sole end state of humanity... in the case of sufficiently unexpected apocalypse looming upon Earth and her meat lifeforms: ceterum censeo humanitatem preservandam esse.

Egan in Diaspora discusses such a scenario (four days to the end of the world for all things fleshed), but he cheated somewhat by positioning Lac G-1 gamma burster source at meager distance of ca. 100 ly from Sun. None such sources are known in the vicinity of our system and the Orion-Cygnus Arm which we may proudly call our home yard.