An Analysis of Research Trends on the Metaverse Using BERTopic Modeling

초록

Research on the metaverse has experienced significant growth in recent years, driven by advancements in technology, the thriving gaming industry, the expansion of social media and virtual communities, economic prospects, and the captivating vision of a new digital interface that transcends the current internet environment. To uncover research themes within the metaverse, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of research trends in this field using publications from Scopus, a widely recognized and extensively utilized scholarly database. Employing BERTopic, an advanced topic modeling technique, we analyzed 2,181 research articles focused on the metaverse. The exploration of the metaverse had humble beginnings with a single publication in 1995 but saw a substantial increase after 2020, reaching explosive growth with 1,041 publications in 2022. The application of the BERTopic model revealed 12 primary topics, each associated with significant keywords. These main topics encompass education, healthcare, blockchain, conferences, fashion, NFTs, cybersecurity, web3, research, video streaming, tinyML, and industry. Notably, among these subjects, education, healthcare, and blockchain exhibit significant research activity. In light of the global concern over the digital divide, we conducted investigations focusing on case studies involving digitally disadvantaged groups, such as individuals with visual impairments and the elderly. However, it is noteworthy that we identified only five studies addressing this issue, indicating limited research presence in this crucial area.

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