Beyond Optimistic Agendas: An Umbrella Review of Metaverse Applications Research

Although many systematic literature reviews summarized the progress of metaverse applications and provided insights into future research directions, their coverage of metaverse applications remains insufficiently comprehensive. Given this, this paper presents the results of a pioneering umbrella review on metaverse applications. Based on a search of the Web of Science database, 32 documents were included and examined in this review. Specifically, the application of the metaverse in education has been most frequently discussed, followed by tourism and marketing. Additionally, the extent of metaverse application appears to vary significantly across different fields, with only certain areas (e.g. education) making notable progress. Moreover, the proposed research agendas tend to be quite optimistic about the positive outcomes of metaverse applications and may overlook potential downsides. Given this, the umbrella review highlights several further research directions that emphasize the negative outcomes for scholars to consider.