Everything You Always Wanted to Know about the Metaverse* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)
Marco Marabelli, Sue Newell
Abstract
In this perspective paper we discuss the metaverse, a sociotechnical system aimed at providing users with immersive, synchronous 3D experience of reality through interoperable platforms and sensor devices. We first examine the metaverse’s technology and its underlying processes and mechanisms, at the individual, organizational (providers companies) and institutional level. We then move to considering some mainstream theories built in the past decades that explain online behaviors (with social software etc.) and questioning their validity within the metaverse. In the concluding section of the paper, we propose meaningful research questions and lay out a research agenda, mainly addressed to IS scholarship but that may be considered by other neighbor fields such as communication and computer science. Throughout the paper we think of the metaverse as a phenomenon involving relevant business opportunities as well as ethical challenges and we thereby present our theoretical reflections along this overarching conceptual idea.