KOREASCHOLAR

The advent of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies have pushed user’s expectation for online experience to a new level. Social connections via texts alone can no longer satisfy appetite for the reality of virtual interaction. Subsequently, the metaverse is invented to reimagine the way people work, play, socialize and live online (Xi et al., 2022). Metaverse is “the post-reality universe, a perpetual and persistent multiuser environment merging physical reality with digital virtuality” (Mystakidis, 2022). The speed at which the Metaverse has evolved both in definition (first coined in 1992 by science fiction author Neal Stephenson) and research but also in practice, has been phenomenal. Earlier visions of what the Metaverse would be were limited to gaming (for example, Roblox, Fortnite, Zepeto), and gaming is still considered to be the most popular service in the Metaverse (Shin, 2022), where reality is replicated through the creation of a virtual 3D space including avatars interacting and communicating. This current immersive extended reality is a space where people not only can play, but work, learn, socialize, buy, and much more (Hollensen, Kotler, & Opresnik, 2022). It could be fair to assume that the potential of Metaverse being much more than simply gaming, took off after Mark Zuckerberg’s continuous references to the metaverse throughout 2020 and 2021, and the subsequent change of Facebook’s name to Meta in 2021. By 2026, it is estimated that 25% of people worldwide will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse for digital activities, including shopping, working, entertainment and social interaction (Johnson, 2022).

• Surat Teerakapibal(Thammasat University, Thailand)
• Yioula Melanthiou(Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus)