Envisioning Digital Practices in the Metaverse: A Methodological Perspective

Luca Sabatucci, Agnese Augello (), Giuseppe Caggianese and Luigi Gallo
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Luca Sabatucci: Institute for High Performance Computing and Networking, National Research Council of Italy, Via Ugo La Malfa 153, 90146 Palermo, Italy
Agnese Augello: Institute for High Performance Computing and Networking, National Research Council of Italy, Via Ugo La Malfa 153, 90146 Palermo, Italy
Giuseppe Caggianese: Institute for High Performance Computing and Networking, National Research Council of Italy, Via Pietro Castellino 111, 80131 Naples, Italy
Luigi Gallo: Institute for High Performance Computing and Networking, National Research Council of Italy, Via Pietro Castellino 111, 80131 Naples, Italy

Future Internet, 2023, vol. 15, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: Researchers are exploring methods that exploit digital twins as all-purpose abstractions for sophisticated modelling and simulation, bringing elements of the real world into the virtual realm. Digital twins are essential elements of the digital transformation of society, which mostly benefit manufacturing, smart cities, healthcare contexts, and in general systems that include humans in the loop. As the metaverse concept continues to evolve, the line separating the virtual and the real will progressively fade away. Considering the metaverse’s goal to emulate our social reality, it becomes essential to examine the aspects that characterise real-world interaction practices and explicitly model both physical and social contexts. While the unfolding metaverse may reshape these practices in distinct ways from their real-world counterparts, our position is that it is essential to incorporate social theories into the modelling processes of digital twins within the metaverse. In this work, we discuss our perspective by introducing a digital practice model inspired by the theory of social practice. We illustrate this model by exploiting the scenario of a virtual grocery shop designed to help older adults reduce their social isolation.

Keywords: digital twins; social practices; digital practices; metaverse; NPC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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