Abstract

The term Metaverse was first introduced in the novel Snow Crash in 1992 (Dwivedi et al., 2023). Since Facebook’s rebranding as Meta Inc., Metaverse applications have taken off. Metaverse is neither an application nor a platform. It is a concept or rather a realm. Metaverse applications encompass all immersive apps – like virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and extended reality. Cognitive factors, such as focal immersion and temporal dissociation, have been used to examine information technology usage (Agarwal & Karhanna, 2000). Using the same cognitive factors, this research project aims to explore their effects on Problematic Use of Metaverse. Metaverse applications are immersive, and the inclusion of a social component will draw in users to keep using them similar to that of social media. While social media has been studied extensively in literature, the interest in Metaverse is just starting to build. This paper hopes to explore the similarities and differences between Metaverse and traditional social media and investigate how cognitive factors affect the problematic use of Metaverse.

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